Medical diagnostic-initiated insurance offering

ABSTRACT

Techniques for procuring insurance based upon medical diagnostic examinations may include, with a patient&#39;s or customer&#39;s permission or consent, auctioning a health profile of the patient or customer, including providing the customer&#39;s health profile to one or more insurance providers and receiving one or more bids. A winning bid may be selected, and based upon the winning bid, and existing insurance policy of the customer may be updated, or a new insurance policy with a customer may be established. When the customer&#39;s health profile changes, updated insurance or new insurance may automatically be provided to the customer. Using the techniques disclosed herein, patients who have undergone medical examinations may be automatically provided with insurance for which they have been pre-approved and that has a competitive cost, as well as more accurately reflects the patient&#39;s risk profile. As a result, insurance or other cost savings may be provided to customers.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to and the benefit of:

-   -   U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/060,080 filed on Oct. 6,        2014 and entitled “System and Method for Obtaining and/or a        Maintaining Insurance Coverage,”    -   U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/104,596 filed on Jan. 16,        2015 and entitled “System and Method for Obtaining and/or a        Maintaining Insurance Coverage,”    -   U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/170,004 filed on Jun. 2,        2015 and entitled “Systems and Methods for Initiating the        Procurement of Insurance Based Upon Medical Diagnostic        Examinations,”    -   U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/173,597 filed on Jun. 10,        2015 and entitled “Medical Diagnostic-Initiated Insurance        Offering,”    -   U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/189,885 filed on Jul. 8,        2015 and entitled “System and Method for Obtaining and/or a        Maintaining Insurance Coverage,” and    -   U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/199,008 filed on Jul. 30,        2015 and entitled “System and Method for Obtaining and/or a        Maintaining Insurance Coverage,” the entire disclosures of which        are hereby incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE

The present disclosure generally relates to insurance and, morespecifically, to systems and methods for initiating the procurement ofinsurance coverage based upon medical diagnostic examinations.

BACKGROUND

Individuals who seek to be covered by health-related insurance and aresensitive to pricing and product features (e.g., coverage types and/orlimits, deductibles, etc.) often expend considerable time and effort infinding insurance providers that best meet their needs. Some types ofinsurance require a medical diagnostic examination to be performed onthe potential insured party or insuree prior to generating and offeringa binding quote, for example, life insurance, long-term care insurance,disability insurance, health insurance, etc. Conventionally, a consumerseeking such insurance (e.g., via in an agent, online, mobile device, atablet, a computing device, a call center, etc.) submits partialpersonal information to receive ballpark quotes for premium payments fora face value of an insurance policy. The partial personal informationtypically may include answers to a set of questions about the potentialinsured party that are provided by the potential insured party and/or byhis or her agent. Examples of such partial personal information includegender; age; state and/or ZIP Code; height and weight; whether or notthe potential insured party uses tobacco products or not; whether or notthe potential insured party has certain medical conditions such as highblood pressure, elevated cholesterol, depression, diabetes, etc.;whether or not any of the parents and/or siblings of the potentialinsured party have been diagnosed with medical conditions such ascancer, stroke and/or heart condition, etc.; and a generalself-categorization of his or her health, e.g., fair, good, very good,excellent, etc.

In some scenarios, one or more desired insurance terms such as coverageamount, monthly premium amount, etc. may be submitted. Accordingly, theinitiation of the procurement of insurance may be triggered by thesubmission, by a potential insured party or by an agent of the potentialinsured party, of partial personal information of the potential insuredparty to one or more insurance providers.

After the partial personal information has been submitted to andprocessed by one or more recipient insurance providers, the consumer mayreceive one or more estimates, ballpark quotes, and/or non-bindingquotes for one or more possible insurance policies. Subsequently, theconsumer may select a particular non-binding quote offered by aparticular insurance carrier or provider (typically, based upon thepremium payment amount), and may be required by the particular insurancecarrier provider to undergo a medical diagnostic examination as part ofthe application process.

The results of the medical diagnostic examination may then be utilizedto determine whether or not the potential insured party actually meetsthe insurance carrier or provider's risk profile for the particularinsurance policy. If the results of the medical diagnostic examination(and, in some cases, other additional information) indicate that thepotential insured party meets the risk profile or otherwise is aneligible insured party for the particular insurance policy, theinsurance carrier or provider may generate a binding quote for theparticular insurance policy based upon the results, and offer it to theconsumer.

This conventional approach suffers from several drawbacks. For instance,a consumer may be required to submit partial personal informationwithout knowing if he or she is actually medically eligible for theinsurance policy being quoted. If he or she is not medically eligible aseventually is determined based upon his or her medical diagnosticexamination results, the consumer may be required to adjust his or herdesired insurance terms and resubmit his or her personal information inhopes of finding a suitable insurance policy for which he or she iseligible. This cycle may need to be repeated multiple times and as such,the consumer may be required to go through multiple redundant steps inorder to eventually find a suitable policy.

Further, the initially provided non-binding quote may differ from theactual binding quote to a significant extent. In such situations, theconsumer may again repeat the cycle in hopes of finding a suitableinsurance premium amount. Thus, the consumer may be forced to guess atwhat particular terms will result in a suitable insurance policy forwhich he or she is an eligible insured party based upon the results ofhis or her yet-to-be-performed medical diagnostic examination.

SUMMARY

The present embodiments may, inter alia, automatically provide aconsumer or patient with one or more offers for insurance correspondingto one or more health-related insurance policies for which the patientis an eligible insured party based upon the patient's medical diagnosticexamination results, without requiring the patient to submit partialpersonal information and/or without requiring the patient to cyclicallyhone in on acceptable insurance terms. In some embodiments, insurancefor the patient may automatically be procured and bound upon the initialavailability of medical diagnostic examination results. Examples of suchtypes of insurance may include life insurance (e.g., term, whole life,universal life, etc.), disability insurance, long-term care insurance,and health insurance, to name a few. The initial provision of insuranceoffers may include one or more binding quotes, and the generation of theone or more binding quotes may be automatically triggered when theresults of a medical diagnostic examination that has been performed on apatient are newly or initially determined and/or available.

Indeed, the generation of the one or more binding quotes may beautomatically triggered based upon the initial availability of theexamination results, and the one or more binding quotes may be the firstor initial estimates or quotes for insurance based upon the newlyavailable results which the consumer receives. In some embodiments,insurance may be automatically procured for the patient when the newlyavailable examination results are initially made available. Thus, thetime and/or effort that consumers must spend to find a suitableinsurance policy may be greatly reduced or even eliminated.

In an aspect, a computer-implemented method may include determining, viaone or more processors of a system, a health profile of a customer,where the customer's health profile is based upon results of a medicaldiagnostic examination that has been performed on the customer, and themedical diagnostic examination may have included an invasive procedure(such as a blood draw), and/or may have been performed in conjunctionwith the customer's annual physical. In one embodiment, determining thecustomer's health profile may include generating the customer's healthprofile from at least a portion of the customer's medical diagnosticexamination results.

The method may further include auctioning or offering for sale, via theone or more processors of the system, an opportunity to provideinsurance to the customer, e.g., life insurance, long-term careinsurance, disability insurance, health insurance, and/or otherhealth-related insurance that requires a potential insured party toundergo a medical diagnostic examination. The auctioning may includetransmitting, via one or more network interfaces of the system and viaan electronic or communications network to a plurality of insuranceprovider computing systems, an indication of the customer's healthprofile; receiving, via the electronic or communications network and theone or more network interfaces from the plurality of insurance providercomputing systems, a plurality of bids for providing insurance to thecustomer, where the plurality of bids have been determined by theplurality of insurance provider computing systems based upon theindication of the customer's health profile; and determining a winningbid from the plurality of bids, e.g., based on a set of criteria, whichmay be a prioritized set of criteria. Based upon the winning bid, themethod may include (i) updating an existing insurance policy of thecustomer, and/or (ii) initiating the establishment of a new insurancepolicy for the customer; and notifying the customer of the update to theexisting insurance policy or of the initiation of the establishment ofthe new insurance policy. The update to the existing insurance policymay include, for example, a discount or a change to a premium and/or toanother insurance policy parameter or term of the existing insurancepolicy.

In one embodiment, the customer may be included in (e.g., a member of) aparticular segment of a set of customers, and the method may includedetermining, by the one or more processors of the system, the membershipof the particular segment from the set of customers based upon contentsof health profiles of the set of customers. Auctioning or offering forsale the opportunity to provide insurance to the customer may includeauctioning or offering for sale an opportunity to provide insurance tothe particular segment of customers. The indication of the customer'shealth profile may include an indication of a characteristic of theparticular segment, where the characteristic may be based upon orindicative of a similarity or commonality of contents of respectivehealth profiles of the customers included in the particular segment. Insome cases, the method may include transmitting an indication of theparticular segment of customers and an indication of the characteristicof the particular segment for use by the plurality of insurance providersystems in determining the plurality of bids.

In some embodiments, the method may include automatically determining achange to the customer's health profile; and based upon the change tothe customer's health profile, updating the particular segment ofcustomers in which the customer is included, and/or assigning thecustomer to another segment of the set of customers. Additionally, themethod may include auctioning or offering for sale an opportunity toprovide insurance to the updated, particular segment of customers or tothe another segment of customers.

In one embodiment, the method may include obtaining one or morepreferences of the customer, where the one or more preferences mayinclude an amount of a premium payment, a term length, an insuranceprovider rating, a type of insurance, a payout amount, an annuityamount, a settlement option, and/or another insurance policy term orparameter. The method may include transmitting an indication of the oneor more customer preferences in conjunction with the indication of thecustomer's health profile for use by the plurality of insurance providercomputing systems in determining the plurality of bids.

In some embodiments, the system is provided by an insurance procurementprovider, and in some embodiments, the system is provided by the medicaldiagnostic provider that performed the medical diagnostic examination onthe customer.

The method may include additional, fewer, or alternate actions,including those discussed elsewhere herein. Further, some or all of themethod may be performed by any of the systems described herein, and/orin conjunction with one or more portions of any number of the othermethods described herein.

In an aspect, a system may include one or more network interfacescommunicatively coupling the system to respective computing systems ofthe plurality of insurance providers via one or more electronic orcommunications networks; one or more data storage devices storing ahealth profile of a customer; and one or more tangible, non-transitorymemories storing particular computer-executable instructions thereon,thereby particularly configuring the system. The customer health profilemay have been generated based on at least a portion of the results of amedical diagnostic examination that has been performed on the customer,which may have included an invasive procedure such as a blood draw. Themedical diagnostic examination may have been performed in conjunctionwith the customer's annual physical, for example.

When the particular computer-executable instructions are executed by oneor more processors of the system, the system may auction or offer forsale an opportunity to provide insurance to the customer, e.g., lifeinsurance, health insurance, long-term care insurance, disabilityinsurance, and/or another type of health-related insurance that requiresa potential insured party to undergo a medical diagnostic examination.The auctioning or offering for sale may include transmitting, via theone or more network interfaces and the one or more electronic orcommunications networks to the plurality of insurance provider computingsystems, an indication of the customer's health profile; and receiving,via the electronic or communications network and the one or more networkinterfaces from the plurality of insurance provider computing systems, aplurality of bids for providing insurance to the customer, where theplurality of bids may have been determined by the plurality of insuranceprovider computing systems based upon the indication of the customer'shealth profile. The system may determine a winning bid from theplurality of bids, e.g., based upon a set of criteria, which may beprioritized; and based upon the winning bid, (i) update an existinginsurance policy of the customer, and/or (ii) initiate the establishmentof a new insurance policy for the customer. Additionally, the system maynotify the customer of the update to the existing insurance policy or ofthe initiation of the establishment of the new insurance policy. Theupdate to the existing insurance policy may include, for example, adiscount or a change to a premium and/or to another insurance policyparameter or term of the existing insurance policy.

In one embodiment, the customer may be included in or be assigned to aparticular segment of a set of customers, where the particular customersincluded in or assigned to the particular segment are determined by thesystem based upon contents of health profiles of the set of customers.In this embodiment, the opportunity to provide insurance to the customermay include an opportunity to provide insurance to the particularsegment of customers. Additionally, the indication of the customer'shealth profile may include an indication of a similar or commoncharacteristic across the customers included in/assigned to theparticular segment, where the characteristic may be based uponsimilarities and/or commonalities of contents of respective healthprofiles of the customers included in the particular segment. Anindication of the particular segment of customers may be transmitted bythe system in conjunction with the characteristic of the particularsegment for use by the plurality of insurance provider systems indetermining the plurality of bids, for example.

In one embodiment, the particular computer-executable instructions maybe executable to cause the system to determine a change to the healthprofile of the customer, and based upon the change to the customer'shealth profile, (i) update the particular segment of customers in whichthe customer is included, and/or (ii) reassign the customer to anothersegment of customers. In some cases, the system may auction or offer forsale an opportunity to provide insurance to the updated, particularsegment or to the another segment to which the customer was reassigned.

In one embodiment, the plurality of bids may be determined by theplurality of insurance provider computing systems based upon theindication of the customer's health profile and an indication of apreference for at least one insurance policy term or parameter receivedat the plurality of insurance provider computing systems in conjunctionwith the indication of the customer's health profile. The at least oneinsurance policy term or parameter may include, for example, an amountof a premium payment, a term length, an insurance provider rating, atype of insurance, a payout amount, an annuity amount, a settlementoption, and/or another insurance policy term or parameter. In somesituations, the preference for at least some of the one or moreinsurance policy terms for parameters may be indicated by the customer,an agent of the customer, one or more insurance providers, and/or thesystem.

In one embodiment, the system may be communicatively coupled, via theone or more network interfaces and the one or more electronic orcommunications networks, to a computing system provided by the medicaldiagnostic provider that performed the medical diagnostic examination onthe customer. The health profile of the customer may be based uponresults of the medical diagnostic examination stored at the medicaldiagnostic provider computing system, for example.

The method may include additional, fewer, or alternate actions,including those discussed elsewhere herein. Further, some or all of themethod may be performed by any of the systems described herein, and/orin conjunction and with one or more portions of any of the other methodsdescribed herein.

With the present embodiments, a customer may first opt into a program oragreement (e.g., one offered by an intermediary entity such as theentity associated with computing system 14 of FIG. 1), and willinglyshare his or her personal data (and/or vehicle data, health data, mobiledevice data, etc.) for purposes of obtaining insurance coverage. Inreturn, the customer may obtain one or more benefits that may beprovided by various embodiments described herein, such as superiorinsurance rates/terms, and/or automatic renewal (or change) of insurancepolicies with little or no effort by the customer, for example. In someembodiments, customers who opt in may also receive other benefits, suchas insurance discounts or rewards, for example.

Advantages will become more apparent to those skilled in the art fromthe following description of the preferred embodiments which have beenshown and described by way of illustration. As will be realized, thepresent embodiments may be capable of other and different embodiments,and their details are capable of modification in various respects.Accordingly, the drawings and description are to be regarded asillustrative in nature and not as restrictive.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The Figures described below depict various aspects of the system andmethods disclosed therein. It should be understood that each Figuredepicts an embodiment of a particular aspect of the disclosed system andmethods, and that each of the Figures is intended to accord with apossible embodiment thereof. Further, wherever possible, the followingdescription refers to the reference numerals included in the followingFigures, in which features depicted in multiple Figures are designatedwith consistent reference numerals.

There are shown in the drawings arrangements which are presentlydiscussed, it being understood, however, that the present embodimentsare not limited to the precise arrangements and instrumentalities shown,wherein:

FIG. 1 depicts an exemplary environment including components associatedwith providing insurance and/or insurance offers based upon medicaldiagnostic examinations, according to one embodiment;

FIG. 2 depicts an exemplary computer system in which the techniquesdescribed herein may be implemented, according to one embodiment;

FIG. 3 depicts an exemplary computer-implemented method for providing orinitiating procurement of insurance based upon medical diagnosticexaminations;

FIG. 4 depicts an exemplary computer-implemented method for providing orprocuring insurance based upon medical diagnostic examinations;

FIGS. 5 and 6 depict additional exemplary computer-implemented methodsfor providing or procuring insurance based upon medical diagnosticexaminations, and providing refunds of medical diagnostic provider orlaboratory (MDL) exam costs to health-related insurance policycustomers;

FIG. 7 depicts an exemplary computer-implemented method of auctioninggroups or bundles of life or other health-related insurance policies;and

FIG. 8 depicts an exemplary method for providing or initiating offersfor insurance based upon medical diagnostic examinations.

The Figures depict preferred embodiments for purposes of illustrationonly. One skilled in the art will readily recognize from the followingdiscussion that alternative embodiments of the systems and methodsillustrated herein may be employed without departing from the principlesof the invention described herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION I. Exemplary Environment for Medical DiagnosticExamination-Initiated Insurance Offers and/or Procurement

The present embodiments relate to, inter alia, automatically initiatingprocurement of insurance for types of insurance that require a medicaldiagnostic examination to be performed on a potential insured party.Examples of such types of insurance may include life insurance (e.g.,term, whole life, universal life, etc.), disability insurance, long-termcare insurance, and health insurance, to name a few.

Generally, the techniques disclosed herein may allow patients orpotential consumers to automatically receive one or more binding quotesfor one or more insurance policies for which they are eligible or havebeen pre-approved as an insured party after the patient has undergone amedical diagnostic exam, without requiring the consumer to initiallysubmit any partial personal information, and/or without requiring thepatient or consumer to guess at or predict which specific insuranceterms may eventually render the patient as eligible or approved forhealth-related insurance coverage. In some cases, the techniquesdisclosed herein the automatic procurement of insurance includesautomatically establishing an in-force insurance policy based upon thepatient's medical diagnostic examination results.

In one embodiment, the techniques disclosed herein may include selectinga set of patients who have been determined to be eligible insuredparties of particular insurance offer(s) based upon their medicaldiagnostic examination results, and triggering the initial provision ofthe insurance offers. The completion of a particular patient's medicaldiagnostic examination and the initial availability of its results mayautomatically trigger the procurement of insurance for which theparticular patient is an eligible, pre-approved party.

Generally, the offered and/or procured health-related insurance is/aretypes of insurance that require a medical diagnostic examination to beperformed on a potential insured party, and as such, the techniquesdisclosed herein initially provide the patients with insurance and/orinsurance offers for which they have been pre-approved. For ease ofdiscussion herein, a “customer,” “consumer,” or “patient” generallyrefers to a person who has undergone a medical diagnostic examination,and who is a potential insured party or insuree of (i.e., potentiallywill be covered by) one or more health-related insurance policies.However, any number of the techniques described herein may equally applyto situations in which a “consumer” is an agent of the patient orpotential insured party, e.g., a parent of a minor for which insurancecoverage is desired, a person who has power of attorney for a potentialinsured party, etc.

With regard to medical diagnostic-initiated insurance offerings, apatient or potential insured party may undergo a medical diagnosticexamination. Typically, the medical diagnostic examination is physicallyperformed on the patient by a medical diagnostic provider, such as aphysician or other medical professional, a medical diagnosticslaboratory, or the like. The medical diagnostic examination may includeone or more invasive procedures, such as a blood draw and respectiveanalysis, a rectal exam, etc. Additionally or alternatively, the medicaldiagnostic examination may include one or more other non-invasiveprocedures, such as taking measurements (e.g., weight, blood pressure,etc.), palpation, or obtaining a culture. The medical diagnosticexamination may be an annual physical examination, for example.

In some embodiments, prior to or as part of the medical diagnosticexamination, the patient (and/or his or her agent) may give permission,affirmative consent or assent to initiating the automatic procurement ofinsurance when the exam results are made available, for example, byauthorizing or granting permission for the release of his or her medicalinformation and/or by waving his or her right to privacy. Additionallyor alternatively, the patient (and/or his or her agent) may givepermission for health-related insurance to be obtained (and in somecases, enacted as an in-force insurance policy) on his or her behalf.

The result of the medical diagnostic examination may be stored, e.g., ina medical records database and/or other database. The results of thepatient's medical diagnostic examination may be stored at an insuranceprocurement system which, in one embodiment, may be owned and/oroperated by the medical diagnostic provider. In some embodiments, theresults of the patient's medical diagnostic examination may be stored atthe medical diagnostic provider system or at a third party system underthe direction of the medical diagnostic provider system, but nonethelessbe made available to the insurance procurement system. The insuranceprocurement system may automatically operate on stored medicalexamination results (with customer permission) to determine if aparticular patient for whom results have been newly added is eligiblefor one or more types of insurance policies for which medical diagnosticexaminations are a pre-requisite. Additionally or alternatively, theinsurance procurement system may operate on a plurality of storedmedical examination results to determine which of the correspondingpatients are eligible for one or more types of insurance policies forwhich medical diagnostic examinations are a pre-requisite. In somesituations, the insurance procurement system may automatically act on aparticular patient or consumer's behalf (with customer permission) toautomatically determine, based upon the results of the patient's medicaldiagnostic examination, one more insurance carriers or providers thatare able to offer insurance policies that best meet the consumer's need,e.g., by using an online or other auction model.

In one example, the insurance procurement system may automaticallygenerate a health profile of the patient based upon his or her storedmedical diagnostic examination results and provide the health profile ofthe patient or consumer (and, optionally, an indication of one or morepatient or consumer preferences and/or requirements) to computingsystems of one or more insurance carriers or providers for bidding. Theinsurance providers' computing systems may return bids and/or offers forinsurance that have been tailored to the patient or consumer, and/or forwhich the patient or consumer has been determined to be an eligible orapproved insured party. Such offers may include binding quotes, as theoffers were generated based upon the results of a comprehensive medicaldiagnostic examination of the patient.

The binding quotes may be the initial, first, or only estimates ofquotes for insurance (either binding or non-binding) that are generatedby the insurance providers' computing systems corresponding to theconsumer or patient. Similarly, the binding quotes may be the initial,first, or only estimates of quotes for insurance (either binding ornon-binding) that the consumer or patient is provided based upon his orher available (and in some cases, newly available) medical diagnosticexamination results. Subsequently, in some embodiments, the insuranceprocurement system may select one of the offers for insurance on behalfof the patient or consumer, e.g., based upon consumer preferences and/orrequirements, thereby entering into a contract for insurance on behalfof the patient or consumer.

In another example, the insurance procurement system may automaticallygenerate a health profile of a patient (with customer permission) basedupon his or her medical diagnostic examination results, and/or mayprovide the health profile the patient (and, optionally, an indicationof one or more consumer preferences and/or requirements) to computingsystems of one or more insurance carriers or providers. The insuranceproviders computing systems may return offers for insurance that havebeen determined based upon the patient's health profile and, optionally,on the one or more consumer preferences and/or requirements. Typically,the offers for insurance may include binding quotes. The insuranceprocurement system may cause indications of the offers for insurance tobe presented to a user, and/or may receive a user selection of one ofthe offers. The insurance procurement system may then provide, to theinsurance provider computing system from which the selected offer wasreceived, an indication that the selected offer was chosen by the user.

In yet another example, each set of stored medical examination resultsfor a set of patients may be used to determine a respective healthprofile of each patient included in the set. Based upon the contents ofa given health profile, the insurance procurement system may determinewhether or not the corresponding patient is eligible as an insured partyfor one or more offers of one or more types of insurance. If the patientis eligible, the insurance procurement system may provide the healthprofile of the patient (and, optionally, an indication of one or morepreferences and/or requirements on an insurance policy and/or insuranceprovider) to one or more computing systems of one or more insurancecarriers or providers. The insurance providers' computing systems mayreturn offers for insurance that have been tailored to the patient andfor which the patient has been already determined to be an eligible orapproved insured party. Such offers may include binding quotes, as theoffers were generated based upon the results of the comprehensivemedical diagnostic examination of the patient, as indicated in thehealth profile. The binding quotes may be the initial, first, sole, oronly estimates or quotes (either binding or non-binding) for insurancethat the patient and/or his or her agent is provided or notified ofbased upon his or her medical diagnostic examination results.

By using one or more of the techniques described above, consumers may beable to automatically obtain offers for insurance and/or enacted,in-force insurance coverage at the most competitive price and/or withthe most desired features without the hassles of shopping for insuranceon their own. In fact, the completion of the medical diagnosticexamination may initiate or trigger the automatic procurement and/orenactment of insurance coverage on behalf of a consumer or patient fromthe most recent or immediate results of his or her medical diagnosticexamination, thus saving the consumer or patient from needing toinitiate the procurement process and provide partial personalinformation, as well as from lengthy delays and repetitive actions. Forexample, an online or other auction for possible insurance policies forthe consumer or patient may be triggered and procured by a completion ofthe patient's annual physical. As such, the insurance procurementprocess may be streamlined and take less time to complete, and mayprovide more accurate, initial binding quotes to the consumer orpatient.

II. Exemplary Environment for Automatically Initiating InsuranceCoverage Based Upon Medical Diagnostic Exams

FIG. 1 depicts an exemplary environment 10 including componentsassociated with obtaining insurance offers and/or insurance coveragethat is triggered or initiated based upon completion of or completedmedical diagnostic examinations, according to one embodiment. Asillustrated in FIG. 1, the environment 10 may include a computing device12 that is operated by a consumer, patient, or customer, or by an agentthereof. The computing device 12 may be any suitable type of computingdevice having wired and/or wireless communication capabilities, such asa personal computer, tablet, phablet, smartphone, etc.

The environment 10 may include an insurance procurement system 14, whichmay comprise a computing system. The insurance procurement system 14 mayinclude one or more servers, or may include a plurality of networkedcomputing devices that have an appearance of a single, logical computingdevice or system, e.g., a group of cloud computing devices, a peer groupof computing devices, or the like. The insurance procurement system 14may be communicatively coupled to the computing device 12 via one ormore electronic or communications networks (not shown in FIG. 1). Theone or more electronic or communications networks may be a singlenetwork, or may include multiple networks of one or more types (e.g.,one or more wired and/or wireless local area networks (LANs), and/or oneor more wired and/or wireless wide area networks (WANs) such as theInternet), for example.

The environment 10 may include computing systems 16-1 through 16-Nassociated with N respective insurance carriers or providers (e.g., twoinsurance providers, five insurance providers, etc.). Each of thecomputing systems 16-1 through 16-N may include one or more servers ofthe respective insurance provider, or may include a plurality ofnetworked computing devices that have an appearance of a single, logicalcomputing device or system, e.g., a group of cloud computing devices, apeer group of computing devices, or the like. Each of the insuranceprovider computing systems 16-1 through 16-N may be communicativelycoupled to insurance procurement system 14 via one or more electronic orcommunications networks (not shown in FIG. 1). The one or moreelectronic or communications networks may be a single network, or mayinclude multiple networks of one or more types (e.g., one or more wiredand/or wireless LANs, and/or one or more wired and/or wireless WANs suchas the Internet), for example. Each of the insurance providers 16-1through 16-N may be a company or organization providing a particulartype or types of insurance that require a potential insured party toundergo a medical diagnostic examination, the results of which are usedto determine insurance policy terms, e.g., health-related insurance.Examples of such types of insurance may include life insurance (e.g.,term, whole life, universal life, etc.), disability insurance, long-termcare insurance, and health insurance, to name a few.

The insurance procurement system 14 may include various units, includinga health profiler unit 20, an eligibility determiner unit 21, a providerselector unit 22, a policy procurement unit 24 and/or a notificationunit 26. Each of some or all of the units 20, 21, 22, 24 and 26 may be(or may include) a respective set of one or more computing devices orprocessors that executes software or computer-executable instructions toperform the corresponding functions described herein. Alternatively,each of some or all of the units 20, 21, 22, 24 and 26 may be, orinclude, a respective component of software or set ofcomputer-executable instructions that is stored on one or more tangible,non-transitory computer-readable media (e.g., a random access memory(RAM) and/or read-only memory (ROM) of the insurance procurement system14) and that is executed by one or more processors of the insuranceprocurement system 14 to perform the corresponding functions describedherein. Still additionally or alternatively, each of some or all of theunits 20, 21, 22, 24 and 26 may at least partially comprise hardwareand/or firmware. Further, one or more of the units 20, 21, 22, 24 and 26may be combined into a single unit, or may be omitted. In variousdifferent embodiments, for example, the insurance procurement system 14may not include the eligibility determiner unit 21, the providerselector unit 22, and/or the notification unit 26.

In one embodiment, the health profiler unit 20 may determine a healthprofile of a patient (with patient permission) based upon the results ofa medical diagnostic examination that has been performed on the patient.The patient's medical diagnostic examination results (or portionsthereof) may be received at the insurance procurement system 14 from asystem 34 provided by the medical diagnostic provider of the patient,and the received results may be stored in an examination resultsdatabase or data storage entity 30, which may be configured to store themedical diagnostic examination results of multiple patients. Theexamination results database 30 may be any suitable type of persistentmemory, and may comprise one or more data storage devices that have theappearance of a single, logical data storage device. The health profilerunit 20 may obtain at least some of the data included in the patient'sstored, medical diagnostic examination results. Additionally oralternatively, the health profiler unit 20 may be triggered to determinethe health profile of a patient when corresponding examination resultsare stored into the data base 30. For example, the act of initiallystoring a new set of examination results may trigger the health profilerunit 20 to generate a corresponding health profile. Additionally oralternatively, the health profiler unit 20 may regularly scan thedatabase 30 for newly added examination results and/or generate newhealth profiles therefrom (with patient permission), and/or the healthprofiler unit 20 may determine health profiles when directed to by auser or by another system.

The health profiler unit 20 may utilize the obtained examination resultsdata to generate a health profile of the patient (with patientpermission). Generally speaking, the medical diagnostic examinationresults of the patient may include measurements, analysis results,observations or comments provided by a medical professional, and/or anyother data or information that was obtained during and/or as a result ofthe performance of the medical diagnostic examination. On the otherhand, a health profile of the patient generally includes a subset of theinformation stored in the patient's examination results, e.g., thesubset of information which may be utilized by an insurance provider todetermine whether or not the patient meets the insurance providers riskprofile for various insurance policies.

For example, a patient's health profile may include types of diagnosticexamination results or data that have been pre-determined to bestatistically significant in determining and/or defining the terms of aninsurance policy, and an insurance provider may utilize the healthprofile to determine whether or not a patient is an acceptable risk forvarious insurance policies. The health profile may includecharacterizations and or categorizations of various aspects of thepatient's health that were determined based upon one or more data pointsof the stored, medical diagnostic exam results. In some cases, thesubset of information may include aggregated, averaged, or otherwisecombined data from the stored, medical diagnostic exam results of thepatient. The content and format of the patient's health profile may beconsistent with that utilized by insurance providers for ease andconvenience of use.

An eligibility determiner unit 21 of the insurance procurement system 14may determine (with patient permission), based upon the contents of ahealth profile, whether or not the corresponding patient is potentiallyeligible for one or more offers for one or more types of insurance thatrequire a medical diagnostic examination to be performed on a potentialinsured party. The determination may be based upon, for example, dataand/or information included in the health profile of the patient.Additionally or alternatively, the determination may be made based upon,for example information, data, boundary conditions, and/or othercriteria provided by each of the insurance providers 16-1 to 16-N, themedical diagnostic provider 34, the insurance procurer 14, and/or insome cases, by the patient or the patient's agent.

The information, data, boundary conditions, and/or other criteria thatare provided by each of the insurance providers 16-1 to 16-N and/or bythe medical diagnostic provider 34 may be stored in a provider database32, in one embodiment, and may be accessed by the eligibility determinerunit 21 and/or by the provider selector unit 24. The provider database32 may be any suitable type of persistent memory, and may comprise oneor more data storage devices that have the appearance of a single,logical data storage device, although in some cases, the examinationresults database 30 and the provider database 32 may an integraldatabase.

The information, data, boundary conditions, and/or other criteria thatare provided by the patient or the patient's agent may includepreferences for and/or requirements on the insurance policies, offers,and/or the insurance carriers or providers, and may be stored inconjunction with the patient's examination results, e.g. in conjunctionwith the patient's medical diagnostic examination results in theexamination results database 30, and/or in another database. Forexample, one or more desired and/or required insurance policy terms maybe indicated a priori and used to perform the selection. Such desiredand/or required terms may include, for example, a premium amount, alength of term, an insurance provider rating, a desired type ofinsurance, a payout or face value amount, a cash surrender value, adividend, a lapse rate, an annuity amount, a settlement option, adeductible amount, a limit or coverage amount, and/or another insurancepolicy term.

In some cases, a prioritization of different insurance policy terms maybe provided. For example, a consumer may require a life insurance policywith a face value of $1,000,000, but may be open to considering a rangeof premium amounts. Additionally or alternatively, other preferences orrequirements relating to insurance, for example, a preference for aninsurance company that offers live insurance agents, may be indicated.Generally, any number of preferences and/or requirements (andoptionally, respective priorities thereof) for one or more insuranceterms, characteristics of insurance policies, and/or characteristics ofinsurance companies or providers may be indicated (e.g., a priori by themedical diagnostic provider, by the insurance procurer, by one or moreof the insurance providers, and/or by the patient or an agent of thepatient), and may be used in the selection process.

In some situations, at least a part of the consumer's desiredpreferences and/or requirements may be received via the computing device12 and provided to the insurance procurement system 14. For example, thehealth profiler unit 20, the provider selector unit 22, or some otherportion of the system 14 may provide on-line forms as one or more webpages (e.g., HTML files, JavaServer Pages files, etc.) stored in amemory of the insurance procurement system 14, and a user may use webbrowser applications executing on the computing device 12 to access theweb page(s). In some situations, at least a part of the consumer'sdesired preferences and/or requirements may be obtained during apatient's medical diagnostic examination, and the preferences and/orrequirements may be provided by the medical diagnostic providercomputing system 34 to the insurance procurement system 14, e.g., inconjunction with the consumer's medical diagnostic examination results.

Whether the consumer's preferences and/or requirements are obtained bythe insurance procurement system 14 via the on-line forms, via accessingthe examination results database 30 or other data storage entity, and/orvia other suitable means, and/or whether the medical diagnostic provider34 and/or insurance provider 16 preferences and/or requirements areobtained by the insurance procurement system 14 via on-line forms, viaaccessing the provider database 32 or other data storage entity, viamessaging or other communications, and/or via other suitable means, thehealth profiler unit 20 and/or the provider selector unit 22 of thesystem 14 may collect or obtain the insurance preferences and/orrequirements, and the provider selector unit 22 may utilize thecollected insurance preferences and/or requirements to determine orselect one or more insurance providers 1-N to which the patient's healthprofile is to be sent for bid or quote. The determination of patienteligibility (e.g., by the eligibility determiner unit 21) and thedetermination/selection of the recipient insurance provider computingsystems that are to receive the patient's health profile (e.g., by theprovider selector unit 22) may be performed sequentially, concurrently,and/or iteratively.

Further, as previously discussed, the selection of recipient insuranceproviders may be based upon data included in and/or characteristics ofthe patient's health profile, and/or may be based upon characteristicsof the types of insurance products offered by the different insuranceproviders 1-N. For example, if insurance provider 2 offers lifeinsurance products for diabetics, insurance provider computing system16-2 would be selected for diabetic patients, as indicated by the dataincluded in the patients' health profiles.

In one embodiment, the characteristics of the types of insuranceproducts offered by the different insurance providers 1-N may be storedin a provider database or data storage entity 32. Additionally oralternatively, the selection of recipient insurance providers may bebased upon other criteria that are not related to consumers or patientsat all, such as random selection of insurance providers, orderedselection, network and/or insurance provider system 16 availability,etc.

In some embodiments, the provider selector unit 22 of the insuranceprocurement system 14 may filter the set of possible insurance providercomputing systems 16-1 through 16-N, and may send the request for quoteto only a subset of the systems 16-1 through 16-N. For example, theinsurance procurement system 14 may determine the subset of insuranceprovider computing systems 16-1 through 16-N to which the health profileof the patient is to be sent based upon one or more preferences forinsurance terms, policy characteristics, and/or provider characteristicsas indicated by the consumer. In some situations, one or morepreferences for insurance terms, insurance providers, and/or othercharacteristics of insurance policies as indicated by the consumer maybe sent or provided with the health profile to each of the selectedinsurance provider computing systems 16-1 through 16-N.

In some situations, the provider selector unit 22 may be omitted fromthe system 14, such as when the insurance procurement system 14 iscommunicatively connected to the computing system(s) of only a singleinsurance carrier, provider, or company. For example, the system 14 maybe communicatively connected to only the computing system 16-N and notto any of the computing systems 16-1 through 16-(N−1). In oneembodiment, the entity or organization that owns and/or operates theinsurance procurement system 14 may be a subsidiary or business partnerof the insurance company N. As such, in situations in which a medicaldiagnostic provider owns and/or operates the insurance procurementsystem 14, the medical diagnostic provider may be a subsidiary or othertype of business partner of the insurance company N.

Further, at least some or all of the eligibility determiner unit 21 maybe included in the health profiler unit 20, the provider selector unit22, and/or some other unit of the insurance procurement system 14. Theeligibility determiner unit 21 may be omitted, such as when all healthprofiles are automatically sent to one or more insurance providers to16-1 to 16-N. In some embodiments, the eligibility determiner unit 21and the provider selector unit 22 are an integral unit.

A policy procurement unit 24 may obtain or procure one or more offersfor insurance, e.g., when the patient has been determined to be apotential, eligible insured party. The policy procurement unit 24 mayconduct an automated auction in order to obtain insurance policies forthe patient, e.g. in a manner similar to that described in U.S. PatentApplication No. 62/104,596, filed on Jan. 16, 2015 and whose entirecontents are hereby incorporated herein by reference, or in anothersuitable manner. For example, the policy procurement unit 24 may send orprovide, to each of the selected insurance provider computing systems16-1 through 16-N, the health profile of the patient and/or otherselected data indicative of the patient's examination results that arestored in the database 30, along with a request for insurance premiumquotes.

After analyzing the information, one or more of the insurance providersmay decide to bid on the provision of insurance to the consumer, and/orpolicy procurement unit 24 may receive the bid(s) from the respectiveones of insurance provider computing systems 16-1 through 16-N. Policyprocurement unit 24 may send each received bid to all others of theinsurance provider computing systems 16-1 through 16-N, and/or biddingmay continue in an iterative fashion until auction termination criteriahave been met (e.g., until a predetermined amount of time elapses, oruntil a predetermined amount of time since the last bid elapses, etc.).The insurance provider having the best bid (e.g., lowest price and/orbest non-price features) at the time the auction terminates may begranted the ability to provide insurance to the consumer. Typically, thebids of the insurance provider computing systems 16-1 through 16-N maybe, or may include, binding quotes or offers for respective insurancepolicies that have been generated or determined based upon the healthprofile of the consumer. Accordingly, the terms of the insurance policycorresponding to a binding quote may not change (although a lifetime ofthe binding quote typically is finite and may be indicated as such), andupon acceptance of the binding quote, a corresponding contract forinsurance may be enacted or entered into, by the insurance procurementsystem 14, on behalf of the consumer.

In another embodiment, the policy procurement unit 24 may obtain thebest rate or the most suitable insurance policy for the patient not byconducting an auction, but rather by automatically requesting a singlequote from each of the insurance providers, and taking the best quote(e.g., the lowest premium, and/or a quote with other features bestmatching the consumer's preferences and/or requirements). Similar to theauction embodiments described above, policy procurement unit 24 mayautomatically request a round of quotes from the insurance providers atwhen new or updated medical diagnostic exam results of the patient areavailable. For example, the policy procurement unit 24 may automaticallysend or provide the health profile of the patient and optionally one ormore preferred insurance terms, insurance policy characteristics, and/orinsurance provider characteristics as indicated by the patient orconsumer to the insurance provider computing systems 16-1 through 16-N.The notification unit 26 may simply notify the consumer of the acceptedpolicy and provider, or may first request confirmation or selection of aparticular policy/provider. The presentation of the candidate insuranceoffers for selection and/or confirmation may be performedelectronically, e.g., via a user interface of the computing device 12.

Whether the one or more binding quotes are generated by an auction, by asingle bid or quote, or by some other suitable manner, the insuranceprocurement system 14 may receive, from one or more responding insuranceprovider computing systems 16-1 to 16-N, one or more binding quotes foroffers for insurance. The one or more binding quotes may be for a sametype of insurance, and/or may be for different types of insurance.Additionally or alternatively, at least some of the binding quotes maybe for a same or similar set of insurance policy terms, and/or at leastsome of the binding quotes may be for different insurance policy terms.In one embodiment, the notification unit 26 of the insurance procurementsystem 14 may cause indications of the one or more received bindingoffers for insurance to be provided to a user, e.g. by presentation at arespective user interface of the systems 12, 14, 34, and/or at least oneof 16-1 to 16-N, by email, by physical letter, etc., thereby initiatingthe one or more offers for the one or more types of insurance for whichthe patient has been determined to be eligible and that include one ormore binding quotes, any one of which may result in a contract forinsurance upon its acceptance.

In one embodiment, in response to the insurance offer notifications, theinsurance procurement system 14 may receive an indication of a selectionof one of the binding quotes, e.g., at a respective user interface ofthe systems 12, 14, 34, and/or at least one of 16-1 to 16-N, by email,by physical letter, etc. For example, a selection of one of the bindingquotes may be provided by the patient and/or by the patient's agent. Theinsurance procurement system 14 may provide an indication, to theinsurance provider computing system 16 x of the selected binding quote,that the particular binding quote has been selected. The insuranceprovider computing system 16 x of the selected binding quote may proceedto underwrite, bind, and/or perform other actions to move the insurancepolicy towards being in force. Further, the insurance provider computingsystem 16 x may provide, to the insurance procurement system 14, one ormore indications that one or more of the actions has been completed,e.g., that the policy has been underwritten, that the policy has beenbound, that the policy is in-force, etc. Upon reception of one or moreindications of rendering actions that have been completed by theinsurance provider computing system 16 x, the insurance procurementsystem 14 may refund at least a part of the cost of the medicaldiagnostic examination, and/or may credit at least a part of the cost ofthe medical diagnostic examination towards future premiums of theinsurance policy.

In some embodiments, the binding quotes or offers for insurance policiesthat have been generated for the patient are the first offers forinsurance that have been generated and brought to the patient'sattention that have been generated based upon the patient's recentlyperformed medical diagnostic examination. That is, the patient has noprior knowledge of potential offers for insurance that may be generatedbased upon his or her medical examination results, and is convenientlyprovided with one or more binding quotes for insurance for which thepatient has already been determined to be eligible as an insured party.

In other embodiments, though, a patient may be aware that his or herexamination results will be automatically be analyzed to procure offersfor insurance for which the patient is determined to be an eligibleinsured party. For example, a patient or the patient's agent may providehis or her a priori authorization for the insurance procurement system14 to enter into a binding contract for a suitable insurance policy onbehalf of the patient, with or without some explicit confirmation forelection by the patient. If a contract is automatically established bythe insurance procurement system 14, the policy procurement unit 24 mayindicate to the insurance provider providing the best bid that the bestbid has been accepted, and the notification unit 26 may cause thepatient or the patient's agent to be informed of the insurance providerand the new policy (e.g., electronically at a user interface of thecomputing device 12, by email, by physical letter, etc.).

If patient or agent confirmation or selection is required, notificationunit 26 may instead cause the patient or agent thereof to be sent anindication of the best offer or offers and the corresponding providers(e.g., electronically at a user interface of the computing device 12, byemail, by physical letter, etc.) along with a request for confirmationor selection. Policy procurement unit 24 may then form the contract withthe winning insurance provider after the confirmation or selection, forexample. In one embodiment, the presentation of the candidate insuranceoffers for selection and/or confirmation may be performedelectronically, e.g., at a user interface of the computing device 12 viaa web-browser or client application that has been downloaded to the userdevice 12 from the procurement system 14.

Thus, as discussed above, in some embodiments, the insurance procurementsystem 14 may automatically select one of the received quotes on behalfof the patient, e.g., based upon the patient's health profile and one ormore preferred insurance terms and/or other characteristics of theinsurance provider and/or of the policy. For example, the insuranceprocurement system 14 may compare the insurance policy terms and/orcharacteristics of each of the received quotes as part of the selectionprocess, e.g. in light of the patient's health profile, preferences forparticular insurance terms, characteristics, and/or providers, if suchpreferences are available.

In other embodiments, the insurance procurement system 14 may receivethe quotes from the insurance provider computing systems 16-1 through16-N, and may cause multiple quotes to be presented to the patient orother user for selection. In some of these cases, the insuranceprocurement system 14 may filter the received quotes prior to sending asubset of the received quotes for the consumer's consideration. Forexample, the insurance procurement system 14 may filter the receivedquotes based upon one or more preferences for particular insuranceterms, insurance policy characteristics, and/or insurance providercharacteristics indicated by the patient or the patient's agent, if suchpreferences are available.

The insurance procurement system 14 may be authorized to enter a bindingcontract for the policy on behalf of the consumer, or may require someconfirmation for election by the consumer. If a contract isautomatically established by the insurance procurement system 14, thepolicy procurement unit 24 may indicate to the insurance providerproviding the best bid that the best bid has been accepted, and/or anotification unit 26 may cause the consumer to be informed of theinsurance provider and the new policy (e.g., electronically at a userinterface of the computing device 12, by email, by physical letter,etc.). If consumer confirmation or selection is required, notificationunit 26 may instead cause the consumer to be sent an indication of thebest offer or offers and the corresponding providers (e.g.,electronically at a user interface of the computing device 12, by email,by physical letter, etc.) along with a request for confirmation orselection. Policy procurement unit 24 may then form the contract withthe winning insurance provider after the confirmation or selection, forexample. The presentation of the candidate insurance offers forselection and/or confirmation may be performed electronically, e.g., ata user interface of the computing device 12.

In one embodiment, the insurance procurement system 14 may be ownedand/or operated by a medical diagnostic provider, such as a physician orother medical professional, a medical diagnostic laboratory (MDL), orother organization providing medical diagnostic examinations topatients. For example, the insurance procurement system 14 may beincluded in and/or integrated with a computing system 34 that is ownedand/or operated by the medical diagnostic provider that performed atleast a part of the diagnostic examination of the patient and/or atleast part of the results analysis therefrom. Data obtained during themedical diagnostic examination of the patient may be stored (and/or maybe analyzed and stored) in the examination results database 30 by otherportions of the medical diagnostic provider computing system uponcompletion of the examination.

In another embodiment, the insurance procurement system 14 may be ownedand/or operated by another entity that may not be a medical diagnosticprovider, such as by an insurance aggregator, insurance procurer, orother third party organization. In this embodiment, though, theinsurance procurement system 14 may nonetheless be communicativelyconnected to one or more computing systems 34 of one or more medicaldiagnostic providers, as shown in FIG. 1.

Thus, as the insurance procurement system 14 is configured toautomatically initiate or trigger the automatic procurement of insurancecoverage on behalf of a patient from the most recent or immediateresults of his or her medical diagnostic examination, network trafficwithin the environment 10 (and indeed, message traffic and resourcesthat are utilized by each of the medical diagnostic provider system 34,the insurance procurement system 14, and at each of the insuranceprovider systems 16-1 to 16-N) is significantly decreased over knowntechniques and methods for procuring insurance for the patient. Further,as compared to known techniques and methods, fewer processor cycles andmemory records are needed at the medical diagnostic provider system 34,the insurance procurement system 14, and/or at each of the insuranceprovider systems 16-1 to 16-N to procure insurance for the patient. Assuch, not only is the patient or consumer saved from needing to initiatethe procurement process and provide partial personal information, and issaved from incurring lengthy delays and repetitive actions during theinsurance procurement process, but computing system resources andnetwork traffic are also significantly decreased.

III. Exemplary Computer System for Automatically Initiating InsuranceCoverage Based Upon Medical Diagnostic Exams

FIG. 2 depicts an exemplary computer system 300 in which the techniquesdescribed herein may be implemented. In one embodiment, the computersystem 300 may be included in the system 10 of FIG. 1. For example, anyone or more of the units 20-26 may comprise one or more instances of thecomputer system 300, the insurance procurement system 14 may compriseone or more instances of the computer system 300, the medical diagnosticprovider system 34 may comprise one or more instances of the computersystem 300, and/or each of the insurance provider computing systems 16-1to 16-N may comprise one or more instances of the computer system 300.The computer system 300 of FIG. 2 may include a computing device in theform of a computer 310. Components of the computer 310 may include, butare not limited to, a processing unit 320, a system memory 330, and/or asystem bus 321 that couples various system components including thesystem memory 330 to the processing unit 320.

The system bus 321 may be any of several types of bus structuresincluding a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, or alocal bus, and may use any suitable bus architecture. By way of example,and not limitation, such architectures include the Industry StandardArchitecture (ISA) bus, Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, EnhancedISA (EISA) bus, Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) localbus, and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus (also known asMezzanine bus).

Computer 310 typically may include a variety of computer-readable media.Computer-readable media may be any available media that can be accessedby computer 310 and may include both volatile and nonvolatile media, andboth removable and non-removable media. By way of example, and notlimitation, computer-readable media may comprise computer storage mediaand communication media. Computer storage media includes tangible,non-transitory, volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removablemedia implemented in any method or technology for non-transitory storageof information, such as computer-readable instructions, data structures,program modules or other data. Computer storage media may include, butis not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, FLASH memory or other memorytechnology, CD-ROM, digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical diskstorage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage orother magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used tostore the desired information and which can accessed by computer 310.Communication media typically embodies computer-readable instructions,data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated datasignal, such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism, andincludes any information delivery media. The term “modulated datasignal” means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics setor changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. Byway of example, and not limitation, communication media includes wiredmedia such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wirelessmedia such as acoustic, radio frequency (RF), infrared and otherwireless media. Combinations of any of the above are also includedwithin the scope of computer-readable media.

The system memory 330 may include computer storage media in the form ofvolatile and/or nonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM) 331and random access memory (RAM) 332. A basic input/output system 333(BIOS), containing the basic routines that help to transfer informationbetween elements within computer 310, such as during start-up, istypically stored in ROM 331. RAM 332 may typically contain data and/orprogram modules that are immediately accessible to, and/or presentlybeing operated on, by processing unit 320. By way of example, and notlimitation, FIG. 2 illustrates operating system 334, applicationprograms 335, other program modules 336, and program data 337.

The computer 310 may also include other removable/non-removable,volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media. By way of example only,FIG. 2 illustrates a hard disk drive 341 that reads from or writes tonon-removable, nonvolatile magnetic media, a persistent memory port 351that reads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatile persistent memorycard or device 352 such as a solid-state drive, a flash drive, a mediacard, a memory stick, etc., and an optical disk drive 355 that readsfrom or writes to a removable, nonvolatile optical disk 356 such as a CDROM or other optical media. Other removable/non-removable,volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media that may be used in theexemplary operating environment include, but are not limited to,magnetic tape cassettes, flash memory cards, digital versatile disks,digital video tape, solid state RAM, solid state ROM, and the like. Thehard disk drive 341 may be connected to the system bus 321 through anon-removable memory interface such as interface 340, and persistentmemory port 351 and optical disk drive 355 may be connected to thesystem bus 321 by a removable memory interface, such as interface 350.

The drives and their associated computer storage media discussed aboveand illustrated in FIG. 2 provide storage of computer-readableinstructions, data structures, program modules and other data for thecomputer 310. In FIG. 2, for example, hard disk drive 341 is illustratedas storing operating system 344, application programs 345, other programmodules 346, and program data 347. Note that these components may eitherbe the same as or different from operating system 334, applicationprograms 335, other program modules 336, and program data 337. Operatingsystem 344, application programs 345, other program modules 346, andprogram data 347 are given different numbers here to illustrate that, ata minimum, they are different copies.

A user may enter commands and information into the computer 310 throughinput devices such as cursor control device 361 (e.g., a mouse,trackball, touch pad, etc.) and keyboard 362. A monitor 391 or othertype of display device is also connected to the system bus 321 via aninterface, such as a video interface 390. In addition to the monitor,computers may also include other peripheral output devices such asprinter 396, which may be connected through an output peripheralinterface 395.

The computer 310 may operate in a networked environment using logicalconnections to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer380. The remote computer 380 may be a personal computer, a server, arouter, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, andtypically includes many or all of the elements described above relativeto the computer 310, although only a memory storage device 381 has beenillustrated in FIG. 2. The logical connections depicted in FIG. 2include a local area network (LAN) 371 and a wide area network (WAN)373, but may also include other networks. Such networking environmentsare commonplace in hospitals, offices, enterprise-wide computernetworks, intranets and the Internet.

When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer 310 is connectedto the LAN 371 through a network interface or adapter 370. When used ina WAN networking environment, the computer 310 typically includes amodem 372 or other means for establishing communications over the WAN373, such as the Internet. The modem 372, which may be internal orexternal and/or wired or wireless, may be connected to the system bus321 via the input interface 360, or other appropriate mechanism. Thecommunications connections 370, 372, which allow the device tocommunicate with other devices, are an example of communication media,as discussed above, and may include one or more respective transceivers.In a networked environment, program modules depicted relative to thecomputer 310, or portions thereof, may be stored in the remote memorystorage device 381. By way of example, and not limitation, FIG. 2illustrates remote application programs 385 as residing on memory device381.

In some configurations, the computer 310 may be included in a pluralityof networked computers or computing devices that have the logicalappearance as a single, integral computing node, e.g., a cloud computingsystem. For example, the application programs 345, other program modules346 and/or program data 337 may be stored in and executed by thelogical, single computing node.

The techniques for automatically initiating insurance coverage basedupon completion of medical diagnostic examinations described herein maybe implemented in part or in their entirety within a computer systemsuch as the computer system 300 illustrated in FIG. 2. The computer 310may be a server or computing device of an insurance procurement system(e.g., within the insurance procurement system 14 of FIG. 1), and theremote computer 380 may be a server or computing device of an insuranceprovider (e.g., within one of the computing systems 16-1 through 16-N ofFIG. 1), for example. In some such embodiments, the LAN 371 may beomitted (e.g., communications may between computer 310 and computer 380may only occur via WAN 373). Application programs 335 and/or applicationprograms 345 may include programs or perspective, particularcomputer-executable instructions that implement the health profiler unit20, the eligibility determiner unit 21, the provider selector unit 22,the policy procurement unit 24, and/or the notification unit 26 of FIG.1, for example. Examination results database 30 and/or provider database32 may be stored on hard disk drive 341, persistent memory device 352 oroptical disk 356, for example. In some embodiments, examination resultsdatabase 30 and/or provider database 32 may be stored on one or moreother data storage devices that are not included in the computer system300 but nonetheless may be accessible by the computer system 300.

In operation, the computer 310 may receive from the remote computer 380one or more consumer preferences and/or requirements for any number ofinsurance terms, insurance policy characteristics, and/or insuranceprovider characteristics (not shown in FIG. 2), for example, when theremote computer 380 comprises a consumer computing device 12. Further,computer 310 may receive from the remote computer 380 bids, bindingquotes, and/or insurance offers (not shown in FIG. 2), for example whenthe remote computer 380 comprises one or more of the insurance providercomputing systems 16-1 through 16-N. The computer 310 may then determinethe winning bid and/or the candidate insurance offers, and notify theconsumer by sending messages (e.g., emails) to the consumer computingdevice and/or providing an indication of the winning bid and/or thecandidate insurance offers at a user interface of the consumer computingdevice, for example.

IV. Exemplary Method for Providing or Initiating Procurement ofInsurance Based Upon Medical Diagnostic Examinations

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary method 400 of providing or initiatingprocurement of insurance based upon completion of medical diagnosticexaminations. In one embodiment, at least a portion of the method 400may be performed by the insurance procurement system 10 of FIG. 1, themedical diagnostic provider system 34, and/or by the computer system 300of FIG. 2. For example, the method 400 may be performed by executingparticular computer-executable instructions stored on the insuranceprocurement system 14. Indeed, the method 400 may operate in conjunctionwith the environment 10, the system 14, and/or the system 34 illustratedin FIG. 1, the system 300 of FIG. 2, and/or any one or more portions ofany one or more of the other methods described herein.

The method 400 may include, for example, communicatively coupling asystem (e.g., the medical diagnostic provider system 34, the insuranceprocurement system 14, the computer system 300, or another suitablesystem) to respective computing systems of a plurality of insuranceproviders (block 402); particularly configuring one or more tangible,non-transitory memories of the system by storing thereon particularcomputer-executable instructions for initiating procurement of insurancebased upon the completion of medical diagnostic examinations and/or theinitial availability of corresponding examination results (block 405);and/or executing, by one or more processors of the system, theparticular computer-executable instructions (block 408).

In one embodiment, the execution of the particular computer-executableinstructions (block 408) may cause the system, after receiving patientpermission, to perform transmitting a health profile of a patient to oneor more insurance provider computing systems (block 410); receiving oneor more insurance offers for one or more insurance policies for whichthe patient has been determined to be an eligible or approved insuredparty (block 412); accepting, on behalf of the patient or consumer, oneof the one or more insurance offers (block 415); and/or providing anindication of the accepted insurance offer to the particular insuranceprovider computing system that generated the accepted insurance offer(block 418), thereby entering into a contract for insurance on behalf ofthe consumer.

The method may include additional, fewer, or alternate actions,including those discussed elsewhere herein. For example, in someembodiments, the blocks 405 and 408 are at least partially omitted, forexample, when one or more of the blocks 410-418 are performed byhardware, firmware, and/or any other suitable means for implementing thehealth profiler unit 20, the eligibility determiner unit 21, theprovider selector unit 22, the policy procurement unit 24, and/or thenotification unit 26.

Specifically, the method 400 may include communicatively coupling asystem to respective computing systems of one or more insuranceproviders (block 402). For example, the system may be the insuranceprocurement system 14 of FIG. 1, and the system 14 may becommunicatively coupled to insurance provider computing systems 16-1through 16-N. The system may be coupled to one or more insuranceprovider computing systems by using any number of any types ofcommunication connections, e.g., direct connections, indirect or stagedconnections, wired, wireless, etc. In some embodiments, the system maybe communicatively coupled to one or more insurance provider computingsystems via one or more electronic or communications networks, e.g.,wired communication networks, wireless communication networks, localnetworks, remote networks, public networks, private networks, securednetworks, unsecured networks, etc. Typically, the system may include oneor more network interfaces that are utilized for the communicativecoupling. Further, the system may be communicatively coupled todifferent insurance provider computing systems 16-1 through 16-N viadifferent network interfaces, connections, and/or networks.

In some embodiments, the system may be owned and/or operated by amedical diagnostic examination provider, and accordingly the system maybe a medical diagnostic provider computing system (e.g., referring toFIG. 1, the system 14 and the system 34 may be an integral system). Inother embodiments, the system may not be a medical diagnostic providercomputing system 34, but nonetheless may be communicatively coupled to amedical diagnostic computing system (e.g., referring to FIG. 1, thesystem 14 and the medical diagnostic computing system 34 may be separatebut communicatively coupled systems).

The method 400 may include particularly configuring one or moretangible, non-transitory memories of the system by storing thereonparticular computer-executable instructions for providing or initiatingprocurement of insurance based upon completion of medical diagnosticexaminations (block 405). Referring to FIG. 2 as an illustrative butnon-limiting example, the particular computer-executable instructionsmay be included in the application programs 335 stored on the RAM 332and/or in the application programs 345 stored on the hard disk drive341, thereby particularly configuring the computing system 300. Theparticular computer-executable instructions may have been downloaded orotherwise transferred to the computing system 300, such as via a networkinterface 370, the persistent memory port 351, or the optical disk port355, for example.

Further, the method 400 may include executing, by one or more processorsof the system, the particular computer-executable instructions (block408) that are stored in the system. The execution of the particularcomputer-executable instructions (block 408) may cause the system toautomatically initiate the provision or procurement of insurance basedupon the completion of medical diagnostic examinations and/or theinitial availability and/or storage of examination results, e.g., intothe examination results database 30. For example, a medical diagnosticexamination may be performed on a patient by a medical diagnosticprovider, a physician or other medical professional, a medicaldiagnostic laboratory, or the like, and at least some of the results ofthe performed examination may be stored into examination resultsdatabase 30. Typically, the medical diagnostic examination may includeat least one invasive procedure, such as a blood draw and analysis. Ahealth profile of the patient may be determined based upon at least someof the results of the performed examination. Indeed, in one embodiment,the method 400 may include determining the health profile of the patientbased upon at least part of the results of the performed medicaldiagnostic examination (not shown in FIG. 3).

In some embodiments of the method 400 (not shown), the method 400 mayinclude causing the storing of at least some of the results of thepatient's medical diagnostic examination (or portions thereof) at thesystem, e.g., in the examination results data storage device 30. Forexample, if the system is a computing system 34 of the medicaldiagnostic provider performing the examination of the patient, theresults of the patient's examination may be directly entered and storedinto the examination database 30 as the results are determined (that is,the examination database 30 stores original examination results orsource copies thereof). On the other hand, if the system is not amedical diagnostic provider computing system 34, but is communicativelycoupled to a computing system 34 of the medical diagnostic provider thatperformed the examination of the patient, the system may receive thepatient's examination results or portions thereof from the medicaldiagnostic provider computing system 34, and upon the receipt of theresults at the system, the system may store the patient's examinationresults or portions thereof into the examination database 30 (that is,the examination database 30 may store duplicate or shadow copies ofexamination results or portions thereof). At any rate, in someembodiments of the method 400 (not shown), the storage of the patient'smedical diagnostic examination results in the examination database 30may trigger or initiate the system to generate the patient's healthprofile. For example, the system may aggregate, average, and/orotherwise combine data from the stored, medical diagnostic exam resultsof the patient to generate the patient's health profile.

In one embodiment, the method 400 may include auctioning a healthprofile of a patient to procure insurance. The auctioning of thepatient's health profile may be similar to the auctioning processdescribed in the aforementioned U.S. Patent Application No. 62/104,596(which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety), in oneembodiment. For example, auctioning the health profile of the patientmay include transmitting or providing the health profile of the patientto recipient insurance provider computing systems included in theplurality of insurance provider computing systems to which the system iscommunicatively coupled (block 410). The transmission of the healthprofile of the patient may be performed based upon an indication thatthe patient or consumer has assented to doing so. For example, anaffirmative assent of the patient or consumer may include an indicationof permission to release the patient's medical information, and/or awaiver of privacy to the patient's medical information. In somescenarios, the assent of the patient or consumer (or of his or heragent) may be obtained a priori, e.g., when the patient undergoes his orher medical diagnostic examination or at some time prior to theavailability of the examination results. An indication of the grantedpermission and/or waiver may be stored at the system or otherwiseindicated to the system.

In some embodiments (not illustrated), prior to transmitting the healthprofile of the patient thereto (block 410), the method 400 may includedetermining or selecting recipient insurance provider computing systems.Referring to FIG. 1 as an illustrative but non-limiting example, thesystem 14 may determine or select which of the insurance providercomputing systems 16-1 through 16-N is or are to receive the patient'shealth profile, e.g., for bidding purposes. The determination orselection of recipient insurance provider computing systems may be basedupon, for example, one or more insurance preferences and/or requirementsindicated by the consumer or patient, one or more characteristics of theinsurance providers 1-N (e.g., as indicated by the provider database32), an availability of each of the insurance provider computing systems16-1 through 16-N, and/or other criteria.

Auctioning the patient's health profile (such as via an online auction,or other auction implemented via an electronics or communicationsnetwork or via wired or wireless data transmission) may includereceiving one or more insurance offers (block 412), e.g., from one ormore of the recipient insurance provider systems. The one or moreinsurance offers may correspond to one or more insurance policies forone or more types of insurance that require a medical diagnosticexamination to be performed on a potential insured party (e.g., life,health, disability, etc.), and the responding recipient insuranceprovider computing systems may have determined that the patient is aneligible and/or approved insured party of each of the one or moreinsurance policies, e.g., based upon the contents of the patient'shealth profile. As such, the one or more insurance offers may be bindingquotes or binding offers for insurance, rather than mere estimates ornon-binding quotes or offers.

In some cases, the one or more insurance offers may have been determinedby the responding recipient insurance provider computing systems basedadditionally upon one or more insurance preferences and/or requirements,e.g., as indicated by the patient or consumer, by the system, and/or bythe respective, responding insurance provider computing system. Forexample, an indication of one or more insurance preferences and/orrequirements of the patient or consumer may have been transmitted withthe patient's health profile to the plurality of insurance providercomputing systems (block 410), and at least one of the respondinginsurance provider computing systems may have generated one or moreinsurance offers based upon both the patient's health profile and thereceived insurance preferences and/or requirements.

Moreover, the initial generation of one or more insurance offers for thepatient or consumer at respective insurance provider computing systemsmay have been initially triggered by the reception of the patient'shealth profile (and optionally of indicated insurance preferences and/orrequirements) at the respective insurance provider computing systems, sothat the one or more insurance offers are initial sets of insuranceoffers that are generated by the respective insurance provider computingsystems for the patient. For example, a specific responding insuranceprovider computing system may not initiate or begin generating aninsurance offer for the patient or consumer until the patient's healthprofile is received at the specific responding insurance providercomputing system from the system (e.g., from the insurance procurementsystem 14 or from the computing system 300). That is, the respectiveinsurance provider computing system does not receive (from the system14, the system 300, any other system, or any user interface) any partialpersonal information corresponding to the patient and relating to thegeneration of the one or more insurance offers prior to receiving thepatient's health profile from the system (e.g., from the system 14 orthe system 300). Indeed, in some cases, the patient's health profile maybe the only indication of a quality of health of the patient that isreceived by the respective insurance provider computing systemcorresponding to the offers for insurance, and/or the one or moreinsurance offers may be generated from the only indication of thepatient's quality of health.

Auctioning the patient's health profile may include comparing thereceived plurality of insurance offers (not shown). For example, thesystem may compare the received plurality of insurance offers based uponone or more insurance preferences and/or requirements indicated by thepatient or consumer, and/or optionally based upon a prioritization ofthe preferences and/or requirements indicated by the patient orconsumer. If the patient or consumer has not indicated any insurancepreferences and/or requirements, the system may compare the receivedplurality of insurance offers based upon one or more default criteria,e.g., the lowest monthly premium amount.

Auctioning the patient's health profile may include accepting, on behalfof the patient or consumer, one of the received plurality of insuranceoffers (block 415). For example, the system may receive an indication ofthe consumer's preferences, requirements, and/or priorities of one ormore insurance characteristics, and the system may automatically selectthe one of the plurality of insurance offers that best meets thepreferences, requirements and/or priorities of the consumer (oralternatively, that best meets the one or more default criteria). Thesystem may automatically accept the selected insurance offer on behalfof the consumer, for example, when permission or authorization for thesystem to automatically select and/or accept insurance offers has beengranted by the consumer or his or her agent a priori.

In one embodiment, permission or authorization for the system toautomatically select and/or accept a suitable insurance offer on behalfof the consumer may have been provided by the consumer, for example, inconjunction with the consumer granting permission to release his or hermedical information, and/or with providing a waiver of privacy to thepatient's medical information. In some scenarios, the permission orauthorization for selecting and/or accepting an insurance offer onbehalf of the consumer or patient may be obtained when the patientundergoes his or her medical diagnostic examination, and/or anindication of the granted permission or authorization may be stored atthe system or otherwise indicated to the system.

At a block 418, the method 400 may include providing, by the system, anindication of the selected insurance offer to the particular insuranceprovider computing system from which the offer was received, therebyentering into a contract for insurance on behalf of the patient orconsumer. The receipt of the indication of the selected offer may causethe particular insurance provider computing system to initiate bindingof the insurance offer, for example.

In one embodiment, after binding has been completed, the particularinsurance computing system may return to the system an indication thatthe selected insurance offer has been bound (not shown). Upon receptionof the indication, the system may cause the patient or consumer to beinformed that the insurance offer has been bound, and therefore his orher insurance policy is established or in-force. For example, the systemmay cause an indication that the insurance offer has been bound to bepresented to the consumer, e.g., at the computing device 12 or otheruser interface. Additionally or alternatively, the system may cause anindication of the bound insurance to be stored, e.g., in the providerdatabase 32 or in some other data storage entity that is included in,accessible to, and/or communicatively connected to the insuranceprocurement system.

In some embodiments (not shown), upon reception of the indication thatthe insurance offer has been bound, the system may cause at least aportion of the cost of performing the medical diagnostic examination tobe reimbursed. For example, the system may cause the generation of arefund of at least a portion of the cost of the examination, or thesystem may cause a credit corresponding to at least a portion of thecost of the examination to be credited towards a future premium of theinsurance policy.

While the method 400 has been described above with respect to aparticular patient's health profile, this is only one of manyembodiments. For example, a particular patient's health profile may begrouped with the health profiles of other patients, and the group ofhealth profiles may be auctioned to various insurance providers and atleast some of the insurance providers may return one or more bids forthe group of health profiles, e.g., in a manner such as described inaforementioned U.S. Patent Application No. 62/104,596 (which isincorporated herein by reference in its entirety). Indeed, any one ormore of the techniques described herein for initiating the procurementof insurance based upon medical diagnostic examinations may operate inconjunction with one or more aspects of U.S. Patent Application No.62/104,596, if desired.

V. Exemplary Method for Providing or Initiating Procurement of InsuranceBased Upon Medical Diagnostic Examinations

FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary computer-implemented method 450 ofautomatically providing or procuring insurance based upon medicaldiagnostic examinations, e.g. based upon their completion and/or on theinitial availability of their results. That is, FIG. 4 illustrates anexemplary computer-implemented method 450 of providing insurancetriggered by medical diagnostic examinations, e.g. via an electronic orcommunications network. In one embodiment, at least a portion of themethod 450 may be performed by the insurance procurement system 14 ofFIG. 1, the medical diagnostic provider system 34, and/or by thecomputer system 300 of FIG. 2. In one exemplary embodiment, though, atleast a portion of the method 450 may be performed by one or more of theinsurance provider computing systems 16-1 to 16-N of FIG. 1. Forexample, the method 450 may be performed by executing particularcomputer-executable instructions stored on the one or more of theinsurance provider computing systems 16-1 to 16-N. Indeed, the method450 may operate in conjunction with the environment 10, the system 14,and/or the system 34 illustrated in FIG. 1, the system 300 of FIG. 2,and/or any one or more portions of the other methods described herein.

The method 450 may include, in one embodiment, receiving a healthprofile of a patient, customer, or consumer (block 452), where thehealth profile has been generated based upon at least a portion of theresults of a medical diagnostic examination performed on the patient;triggering, based upon the contents of the patient's health profile, thegeneration of one or more binding insurance offers or binding quotes forinsurance policies for which the patient is an eligible and/or approvedparty 455; providing, an indication of the one or more binding quotesfor insurance 458; receiving an indication that one of the bindingquotes for insurance has been selected 460; and/or binding the selectedinsurance quote 462. The method may include additional, fewer, oralternate actions, including those discussed elsewhere herein.

For example, in one embodiment, at least portions of the method 450 maybe performed by one or more of the insurance provider systems 16-1 to16-N. As such, in this embodiment, the method 450 may includecommunicatively coupling the system 16-x (e.g., one or more of thesystems 16-1 to 16-N) to an insurance procurement system (block 465),such as the insurance procurement system 14 of FIG. 1. The system 16-xmay be coupled to the insurance procurement system by using any numberof any types of electronic or communication connections, e.g., directconnections, indirect or staged connections, wired, wireless, etc. Insome embodiments, the system 16-x may be communicatively coupled to theinsurance procurement system via one or more electronic orcommunications networks, e.g., wired communication networks, wirelesscommunication networks, local networks, remote networks, publicnetworks, private networks, secured networks, unsecured networks, etc.Typically, the system 16-x may include one or more network interfacesthat are utilized for the communicative coupling. Further, the system16-x may be communicatively coupled to one or more medical diagnosticprovider system 34, such as when the insurance procurement system 14 andthe medical diagnostic provider system 34 are an integral system.

In one embodiment, the method 450 may include particularly configuringone or more tangible, non-transitory memories of the system 16-x bystoring thereon particular computer-executable instructions forprocuring insurance based upon medical diagnostic examinations (block468). Referring to FIG. 2 as an illustrative but non-limiting example,the particular computer-executable instructions may be included in theapplication programs 335 stored on the RAM 332 and/or in the applicationprograms 345 stored on the hard disk drive 341, thereby particularlyconfiguring the computing system 300. The particular computer-executableinstructions may have been downloaded or otherwise transferred to thecomputing system 300, such as via a network interface 370, thepersistent memory port 351, or the optical disk port 355, for example.

The method 450 may include executing, by one or more processors of thesystem 16-x, the particular computer-executable instructions (block470), e.g., the instructions stored in and particularly configuring thesystem 16-x. The execution of the particular computer-executableinstructions (block 470) may cause automatic procurement of insurancebased upon the availability of medical diagnostic examination results.For example, the execution of the particular computer-executableinstructions may cause the system 16-x to perform one or more of theblocks 452-462 of the method 450, and/or optionally one or more othersteps. In some embodiments, the block 468 and/or the block 470 are atleast partially omitted, such as when at least a portion of at leastsome of the blocks 452-462 are performed by hardware and/or firmware.

Turning to block 452, in one embodiment, the method 450 may includereceiving a health profile of a patient, consumer, customer, or subjecton which a medical diagnostic examination has been performed, e.g., by amedical diagnostic provider, a physician or other medical professional,a medical diagnostic laboratory, or the like (block 452). As previouslydiscussed, typically, the medical diagnostic examination may haveincluded at least one invasive procedure, such as a blood draw andanalysis, and in some scenarios, the medical diagnostic examination mayhave been performed as part of the patient's annual physicalexamination. Some or all of the examination results may have been usedto determine and/or generate the received health profile, e.g., aspreviously discussed above.

For example, at least a portion of the results of the medical diagnosticexamination of the patient may have been received by the insuranceprocurement system 14, the insurance procurement system 14 may havegenerated the health profile therefrom, and the health profile may havebeen received at the insurance provider system 16-x from the insuranceprocurement system 14 (e.g., via a network interface coupling theinsurance provider system 16-x to an electronic or communicationsnetwork and the insurance procurement system 14). In one embodiment, thepatient's health profile is received (block 452) as part of an auction,e.g., as part of an online auction performed by the system 14, such aspreviously described, and as such, the insurance provider systemreceiving the patient's health profile (block 452) is one of a pluralityof insurance provider systems to which the patient's health profile maybe provided. In another example, the patient's health profile may bereceived by the insurance provider system 16-x from the medicaldiagnostic provider computing system 34.

Upon receiving the patient's health profile (block 452), the method 450may include triggering, based upon the contents of the health profile,the initial generation of one or more binding quotes for one or moreinsurance policies for which the patient is eligible to be an insuredparty (block 455), where the one or more insurance policies are one ormore types of insurance that require a medical diagnostic examination tobe performed on a potential insured party, e.g., life insurance,long-term care insurance, health insurance, disability insurance, etc.For example, one or more processors of the insurance provider system16-x may trigger the initial generation of the one or more bindingquotes based upon the contents of health profile of the patient. Thebinding quotes whose generation is triggered at the block 455 areinitial or first quotes generated by the insurance provider system 16-xfor the patient, as the generated binding quotes are the first, initial,or only estimates or quotes for insurance that are generated by therecipient insurance provider computing device 16-x based upon theparticular patient examination results that have been received (block452). That is, prior to the execution of the block 458, no otherestimates, ball-park quotes, non-binding quotes, and/or binding quotesfor insurance have been generated by the recipient insurance providersystem 16-x based upon the received health profile, or indeed, basedupon the patient's medical diagnostic examination results from which thepatient's health profile was generated.

Furthermore, with regard to the recipient insurance provider system16-x, the health profile of the patient may be the only receivedindication of a quality of a health of the patient corresponding to theone or more binding quotes. For example, none of the binding quotes aregenerated at the block 455 based upon any information corresponding tothe patient and received at the recipient insurance provider systemprior to the receipt of the patient's health profile.

In one embodiment, triggering the initial generation of the one or morebinding quotes (block 455) may include generating at least one of theone or more binding quotes, where the one or more binding quotes are aninitial and only set of quotes for insurance that are generated for thepatient. Furthermore, in some cases, the one or more initial bindingquotes may be generated based additionally upon one or more insurancepolicy term/parameter preferences and/or requirements, e.g., asindicated by the patient or consumer, an agent of the patient orconsumer, and/or as indicated by one or more of the systems 34, 14and/or 16-x. For example, an indication of one or more insuranceterm/parameter preferences and/or requirements of the patient orconsumer may have been received in conjunction with the patient's healthprofile (block 452). The one or more insurance preferences and/orrequirements of the patient or consumer may include, for example, one ormore preferred insurance policy terms such as an amount of a premiumpayment, a length of term, a type of insurance, a payout amount, anannuity amount, a settlement option, and/or another insurance policyterm or parameter.

In one embodiment, the method 450 may include providing an indication ofone or more of the generated binding quotes (block 458) to anothercomputing system, to one or more user interfaces, to a database or datastorage entity (e.g., the data storage entity 32), etc. For example, theinsurance provider system 16-x may provide an indication of one or moreof the generated binding quotes to the recipient computing system(s)and/or user interfaces via the network interface coupling the insuranceprovider system 16-x to the electronic or communications network. Ifmore than one binding quote was generated (block 455), an indication ofeach generated binding quote may be provided (block 458).

Additionally, the method 450 may include receiving an indication thatone of the generated binding quotes has been selected (block 460). Forexample, one of the plurality of binding quotes may have beenautomatically been selected by the insurance procurement system 14 aspart of an auction, or the patient or patient's agent may have selectedone of the plurality of binding quotes. For example, the indication ofthe binding quote selection may be received at the insurance providersystem 16-x via the network interface and the electronic orcommunications network from a computing system or user interface towhich the plurality of binding quotes was provided (block 458).

At a block 462, the method 450 may include binding the selectedinsurance quote, where the bound, selected binding quote is for aparticular insurance policy for which the patient is named as an insuredparty. For example, the one or processors of the insurance providersystem 16-x may bind the selected insurance quote, thereby procuringinsurance and/or establishing an in-force insurance policy for thepatient. Binding the insurance quote (block 462) may include enteringinto a contract for insurance with the patient or consumer. The selectedinsurance offer may be automatically bound on behalf of the patient orconsumer, for example, when permission or authorization for the systemto automatically select and/or accept insurance offers has been grantedby the patient or consumer. Typically, the consumer's permission orauthorization has been provided a priori, e.g., in a manner such aspreviously discussed.

In one embodiment, the method 450 may include causing underwriting to beperformed on one or more binding quotes. For example, generating the oneor more binding quotes (block 455) may include underwriting at leastsome of the one or more binding quotes, and/or binding the selectedinsurance quote (block 462) may include causing underwriting to beperformed on the selected binding quote. The one or more processors ofthe insurance provider system 16-x because the underwriting to be formedon the one or more binding quotes.

After binding has been completed (block 462), the method 450 may includeproviding an indication that the selected insurance quote has been bound(not shown), e.g., to the system from which the patient's health profilewas received, to one or more user interfaces, to a database or datastorage entity (e.g., the data storage entity 32), etc. via the networkinterface and the electronic or communications network. Upon receptionof the indication, the entity receiving the indication of the boundinsurance policy may cause the patient or consumer to be informed thatthe insurance offer has been bound, and that a contract for insurancehas been entered into on behalf of the patient or consumer. For example,the receiving entity may cause an indication that the insurance offerhas been bound to be presented to the consumer, e.g., at the computingdevice 12 or other user interface.

In some embodiments, upon reception of the indication that the insuranceoffer has been bound, the receiving entity may cause at least a portionof the cost of performing the medical diagnostic examination to bereimbursed. For example, the receiving entity may cause the generationof a refund of at least a portion of the cost of the examination, or thereceiving entity may cause a credit corresponding to at least a portionof the cost of the examination to be credited towards a future premiumof the insurance policy.

While the method 450 has been described above with respect to aparticular patient's health profile, this is only one of manyembodiments. For example, a particular patient's health profile may begrouped with the health profiles of other patients, and the group ofhealth profiles may be received at an insurance provider system 16-x aspart of an auctioning process, in which more than one insurance providerreturns one or more bids for the group of health profiles, e.g., in amanner such as described in aforementioned U.S. Patent Application No.62/104,596. Indeed, any one or more of the techniques described hereinfor initiating the procurement of insurance based upon medicaldiagnostic examinations may operate in conjunction with one or moreaspects of U.S. Patent Application No. 62/104,596, if desired.

VI. Exemplary Insurance-Based Embodiments

To solve the problem of requiring the customer submit partial personalinformation without knowing if he or she is actually medically eligiblefor an insurance policy, an insurance provider may start a subsidiary orpartner with a firm that specializes in medical diagnostics, e.g., amedical diagnostic provider or medical diagnostic laboratory (MDL). Inthis case, the customer who is looking for insurance coverage may makean appointment with the medical diagnostic provider or lab to conductthe diagnostic examination to determine the customer's health profile orpresent health. The customer may use cash, credit or a debit card, orany other form of payment to cover the cost of the medical diagnosticexam. After the results of the exam are completed and available, thesubsidiary or partner, acting on the customer's behalf (and with thecustomer's permission), may initiate an online or other auction withinsurance carriers to find the carrier that may offer the customer,based upon the customer's medical diagnostic exam results, the bestpremium payment or other feature(s) to meet the customer's insuranceneed. After the insurance policy is booked, the insurance carrier mayeither refund the customer for the price of the medical diagnostic examor credit this amount towards the customer's first insurance premiumpayment.

FIG. 5 depicts an exemplary computer-implemented method of providing orprocuring insurance (e.g., a bound insurance product) to an on-linecustomer 500. The method 500 may be utilized for providing or procuringinsurance via an electronic or communications network and based uponcustomers' medical diagnostic examinations, for example. One or moreportions of the method 500 may operate in conjunction with the systems14, 34, and/or 16-1 to 16N of FIG. 1, the system 300 of FIG. 2, and/orwith any one or more portions of the other methods described herein. Forexample, at least a portion of the method 500 may be executed by one ormore processors of the insurance procurement system 14, e.g., by usingone or more electronic or communications networks. Additionally oralternatively, at least a portion of the method 500 may be executed byone or more processes of the medical diagnostic provider system 34,e.g., by using one or more electronic or communications networks.

It is noted that although the method 500 is discussed below withsimultaneous reference to FIGS. 1-3, this is merely for ease ofdiscussion, and is not limiting in any way. Generally, the method 500may be applicable for any number of any types of insurance that requirea medical diagnostic examination to be performed on a potential insuredparty, e.g., life insurance, health insurance, disability insurance,long-term care insurance, etc., but may be equally applicable to othertypes of insurance, e.g., automobile insurance, personal liabilityinsurance, etc.

The method 500 may include receiving an indication that a customer isinterested in purchasing insurance 502; setting up an appointment forthe customer with the medical diagnostic provider for a medicaldiagnostic exam 504; receiving payment from the customer for the medicaldiagnostic exam 506; receiving and analyzing results from the medicaldiagnostic exam with the customer's consent 508; generating one or morebinding quotes for insurance (and/or a health profile) based uponmedical diagnostic exam results 510; transmitting the one or morebinding quotes for insurance to the customer and/or receiving acceptanceand/or selection of a quote or winning bid 512; and/or refunding thecost of the medical diagnostic exam to the customer upon purchase of theinsurance product 514. The method may include additional, less, oralternate actions, including those discussed herein, and/or may beimplemented via one or more processors or servers (such as processors orservers associated with insurance providers, medical diagnosticproviders, customers (such as customer mobile devices), insurance leadaggregators, and/or others), electronic or communications networks,and/or computer-executable instructions stored on non-transitory,computer-readable media or medium. In one embodiment, a system providesa client application that executes on a customer's device 12, and theclient application and the system operate in conjunction to perform themethod.

The method 500 may include receiving an indication that an on-linecustomer is interested in purchasing insurance 502. For instance,medical diagnostic provider or insurance provider remote server mayreceive an electronic indication that a customer is interested ininsurance, such as receiving a transmission or request for informationfrom a website and/or via the customer's mobile device or othercomputing device 12. The insurance may be of any type or types ofinsurance that requires a potential insured party to undergo a medicaldiagnostic examination, the results of which are used to determineinsurance policy terms. Examples of such types of insurance includeinsurance (e.g., term, whole life, universal life, etc.), disabilityinsurance, long-term care insurance, health insurance, etc.

In one embodiment, upon receiving the indication from the customer 502,the system may cause a client application to be downloaded to a clientcomputing device 12, and the client application executes in conjunctionwith the system to procure insurance for the customer. In anotherembodiment, the client computing device 12 executes a web-browser orweb-based application that executes in conjunction with the system toprocure insurance for the customer.

The method 500 may include setting up or scheduling an appointment forthe customer with the medical diagnostic provider for a medicaldiagnostic exam 504. For instance, the processors of the medicaldiagnostic provider system 34 and/or the insurance provider system 14may check available time slots for a medical diagnostic examappointment, and provide one or more options (or exam time slots) forthe customer to accept, such as accept via their mobile device 12.

The method 500 may include receiving payment from the customer for themedical diagnostic exam 506. For instance, electronic payment for themedical diagnostic exam may be received via payment from a credit cardor checking account over the Internet or other wired or wirelesscommunication networks.

The method 500 may include receiving and analyzing results from themedical diagnostic exam with the customer's consent 508. For example,after the customer provides affirmative consent to release his or hermedical information, the medical diagnostic exam results of a portionthereof may be received, e.g. via one or more electronic orcommunications networks by one or more processors (or servers) from themedical diagnostic provider system 34. Upon receipt of the customer'smedical diagnostic examination results, one or more processorsassociated with the medical diagnostic provider 34, the insuranceprocurement system 14, and/or the insurance provider(s) 16-1 to 16-N mayanalyze the received results. In one embodiment, a health profile of thecustomer may be generated from the analysis of the customer's examresults.

The method 500 may include generating one or more binding quotes forinsurance (and/or a health profile) based upon medical diagnostic examresults 510. In one embodiment, a single insurance provider may analyzethe medical diagnostic exam results and generate a binding quote forlife and/or other types of insurance for the customer. In anotherembodiment, the system (e.g. the medical diagnostic system 34 and/or theinsurance procurement system 14) may generate a health profile of thecustomer, and the health profile may be provided to numerous insuranceproviders.

Subsequently, the system (e.g., the medical diagnostic system 34 or theinsurance procurement system 14) may receive several binding quotes fromthe numerous insurance providers. For example, an online auction of theopportunity to provide insurance to the customer (which may result inseveral binding quotes, or even a single winning quote), may beperformed electronically via wired or wireless communication and/or datatransmission, e.g., by transmitting the customer's health profile and/orat least a portion of the customer's medical diagnostic exam results tovarious insurance provider system 16-1 to 16-N. In one embodiment,generating the one or more binding quotes for insurance may includegenerating the quotes based upon one or more preferred insurance policyterms, such as an amount of a premium payment, a term length, aninsurance provider rating, a desired type of insurance, a payout amount,an annuity amount, a settlement option, or one or more other insurancepolicy terms. At least one of the preferred insurance policy terms maybe indicated by or received from the customer, for example, e.g., fromhis or her mobile computing device 12.

The method 500 may include transmitting the one or more binding quotesfor insurance to the customer and/or receiving acceptance and/orselection of a quote or winning bid 512. For instance, the binding quoteor quotes may be transmitted to a client application or a browserapplication executing on the customer's mobile device 12 via one or moreelectronic indications networks. The customer may then accept one of thebinding quotes to have a bound insurance product provided by theinsurance provider, and as such, the method 500 may include receiving,from the customer's mobile device 12, an indication of an acceptanceand/or a selection of a particular binding quote.

The method 500 may include, upon a purchase of insurance productcorresponding to the particular binding quote, electronically refundingat least a portion of the cost of the medical diagnostic exam to thecustomer upon purchase of the insurance product, electronicallycrediting an account of the customer, and/or providing a discount to thecustomer (reference 514). For instance, the insurance provider system16-1 to 16-N, the insurance procurement system 14, and/or the medicaldiagnostic provider system 34 may electronically refund the cost of themedical diagnostic exam to the customer's bank or credit card accountafter the customer has purchased a bound insurance product.

In one embodiment, the method 500 may further include transmitting anindication that an insurance policy corresponding to the particularbinding quote has been bound (not shown), and as such the procuredinsurance policy has been established or is in-force. For example, suchan indication may be transmitted to the customer's mobile device 12 viaone or more electronic or communications networks.

In one aspect, a computer-implemented method of providing a boundinsurance product to an online customer may be provided. The method mayinclude (1) receiving, via one or more processors (such as a medicaldiagnostic provider or insurance provider remote processor or server),an electronic indication that a customer is interested in purchasinginsurance (such as via wired or wireless communication and/or datatransmission); (2) scheduling or setting up, via one or more processors,an appointment for the customer interested in purchasing insurance withthe medical diagnostic provider for a medical diagnostic exam; (3)receiving, via one or more processors, electronic payment from thecustomer for the medical diagnostic exam; (4) receiving and analyzingresults from the medical diagnostic exam, via one or more processors,with the customer's consent (such as via wired or wireless communicationand/or data transmission); (5) generating one or more binding quotes forinsurance (and/or a health profile) based upon medical diagnostic examresults, via one or more processors; (6) transmitting, under thedirection and/or control of one or more processors (and/or a relatedtransceiver), the one or more binding quotes for insurance to thecustomer's mobile device (such as via wireless communication and/or datatransmission); (7) receiving acceptance and/or selection of a quote orwinning bid, via one or more processors (and/or a related transceiver)from the customer's mobile device (such as via wireless communicationand/or data transmission); and/or (8) electronically refunding, via oneor more processors, the cost of the medical diagnostic exam to thecustomer or electronically crediting a customer account or providing adiscount upon purchase of the insurance product to facilitate providingbound insurance products to online customers. The method may includeadditional, less, or alternate actions, including those discussedelsewhere herein.

VII. Additional Insurance-Based Embodiments

FIG. 6 depicts an exemplary computer-implemented method of providinginsurance to a customer 600. The method 600 may be utilized forprocuring insurance via an electronic or communications network andbased upon customers' medical diagnostic examinations, for example. Oneor more portions of the method 600 may operate in conjunction with thesystems 14, 34, and/or 16-1 to 16N of FIG. 1, the system 300 of FIG. 2,and/or with any one or more portions of the other methods describedherein. For example, at least a portion of the method 600 may beexecuted by one or more processors of the insurance procurement system14, e.g., by using one or more electronic or communications networks.Additionally or alternatively, at least a portion of the method 600 maybe executed by one or more processes of the medical diagnostic providersystem 34, e.g., by using one or more electronic communicationsnetworks. It is noted that although the method 600 is discussed belowwith simultaneous reference to FIGS. 1-3, this is merely for ease ofdiscussion, and is not limiting in any way. Generally, the method 600may be applicable for any number of any types of insurance that requirea medical diagnostic examination to be performed on a potential insuredparty, e.g., life insurance, health insurance, disability insurance,long-term care insurance, etc., but may be equally applicable to othertypes of insurance, e.g., automobile insurance, personal liabilityinsurance, etc.

In one aspect, the method 600 may include receiving an indication that acustomer is interested in having a medical diagnostic exam and receivingpayment for the medical diagnostic exam from the customer 604; pushing anotice of the opportunity to receive an insurance offer based upon themedical diagnostic exam results, and requesting customer consent for3^(rd) party (e.g., insurance provider) analysis of the medicaldiagnostic exam results to generate personalized insurance offer 604;receiving consent from the customer for 3^(rd) party analysis of themedical diagnostic exam 606; receiving and analyzing results from themedical diagnostic exam with the customer's consent 608; generating oneor more binding quotes for insurance (and/or a health profile) basedupon medical diagnostic exam results 610; transmitting the one or morebinding quotes for insurance to the customer and/or receiving acceptanceand/or selection of a quote or winning bid 612; and/or refunding thecost of the medical diagnostic exam to the customer upon purchase of theinsurance product 614. The method may include additional, less, oralternate actions, including those discussed herein, and/or may beimplemented via one or more processors or servers (such as processors orservers associated with insurance providers, medical diagnosticproviders or laboratories, customers (such as customer mobile devices),insurance lead aggregators, and/or others), and/or computer-executableinstructions stored on non-transitory, computer-readable media ormedium.

The method 600 may include receiving an indication that a customer isinterested in having a medical diagnostic exam and/or receiving paymentfor the medical diagnostic exam from the customer 604. For instance,customer may schedule a medical diagnostic exam and/or provide onlinepayment for the medical diagnostic exam via the internet and a medicaldiagnostic provider website, and/or by downloading a client applicationonto his or her computing device 12, and via which a medical diagnosticexamination may be scheduled and payment may be received.

After the medical diagnostic exam has been scheduled, the method 600 mayinclude pushing, sending, or transmitting a notice of the opportunity toreceive an insurance offer based upon the medical diagnostic examresults, such as sending the notice to the customer's account associatedwith the customer's medical diagnostic provider, or directly to theirmobile device 604 (e.g., to a web-browser or client applicationexecuting on their mobile device 12). Along with the notice, customerconsent may be requested for third party (e.g., insurance provider)analysis of the medical diagnostic exam results to generate personalizedinsurance offers.

The method 600 may include receiving consent from the customer for thirdparty analysis of the medical diagnostic exam 606. For instance, consentfrom the customer may be transmitted from their mobile device to aninsurance provider or medical diagnostic provider remote server orprocessor via wireless communication and/or data transmission.

The method 600 may include receiving and analyzing results from themedical diagnostic exam with the customer's consent 608. The medicaldiagnostic exam results may be analyzed for various items, such as thosediscussed elsewhere herein.

The method 600 may include generating one or more binding quotes forinsurance (and/or a health profile) based upon medical diagnostic examresults 610. For instance, a binding quote may be generated from asingle insurance provider. Additionally or alternatively, severalinsurance providers may participate in an online auction, and/orotherwise each insurance provider may provide one or more binding offersfor insurance based upon the medical diagnostic exam results.

The method 600 may include transmitting the one or more binding quotesfor insurance to the customer and/or receiving acceptance and/orselection of a quote or winning bid 612. For instance, the customer maybe able to view several binding quotes via the mobile device, or a3^(rd) party may select winning quote and send the winning quote to themobile device of the customer for the customer's review andrejection/approval.

The method 600 may include refunding the cost of the medical diagnosticexam to the customer upon purchase of the insurance product 614. Forinstance, the cost of the medical diagnostic exam may transferred to thecustomer's bank or credit card account, or may be deducted from the costof the insurance product.

VIII. Exemplary Computer-Implemented Method

FIG. 7 illustrates an exemplary computer-implemented method 700. Themethod 700 may be utilized for procuring insurance via an electronic orcommunications network and based upon consumers' or customers' medicaldiagnostic examinations, for example. One or more portions of the method700 may operate in conjunction with the systems 14, 34, and/or 16-1 to16N of FIG. 1, the system 300 of FIG. 2, and/or with any one or moreportions of the other methods described herein. For example, at least aportion of the method 700 may be executed by one or more processors ofthe insurance procurement system 14, e.g., by using one or moreelectronic or communications networks. Additionally or alternatively, atleast a portion of the method 700 may be executed by one or moreprocesses of the medical diagnostic provider system 34, e.g., by usingone or more electronic communications networks.

It is noted that although the method 700 is discussed below withsimultaneous reference to FIGS. 1-3, this is merely for ease ofdiscussion, and is not limiting in any way. Generally, the method 700may be applicable for any number of any types of insurance that requirea medical diagnostic examination to be performed on a potential insuredparty, e.g., life insurance, health insurance, disability insurance,long-term care insurance, etc., but may be equally applicable to othertypes of insurance, e.g., automobile insurance, personal liabilityinsurance, etc.

The method 700 may include, via one or more processors, computingdevices, or servers: analyzing insurance customers (e.g., existing orpotential insurance customers) by health characteristics and/orinsurance policy preferences 702; dividing and/or classifying insurancecustomers into groups or segments based on the health characteristicsand/or insurance preferences 704; auctioning or offering for sale theopportunity to provide medical diagnostic-related insurance to one ormore of the customer groups or segments 706; receiving and comparing oneor more bids 708; accepting one or more winning bids 709; notifyinginsurance customers of new insurance policies and/or of changes toexisting insurance policies, premiums, discounts, etc. 710;automatically detecting events that may impact a risk associated with,or the health of, a customer, or otherwise monitoring a customer'shealth with their consent 712; updating the customer's health profile orrisk score based upon the detected event 714; and/or updating thecustomer' insurance group and/or moving the customer to a new insurancegroup 716. After a number of customers have been moved to new ordifferent risk insurance groups, another auction of the new or updatedgroups may be held 706, the process may continue 708, 710, 712, 714,716, etc. The method may include additional, fewer, or alternateactions, including those discussed elsewhere herein.

In particular, the method 700 may include, via one or more processors,computing devices, or servers, analyzing insurance customers by theirhealth characteristics and/or insurance policy preferences 702. Theanalysis of customers may be by insurance policy preferences, such as byinsurance coverages, deductibles, and/or limits typically desired orrequested by an individual customer. For instance, a group of insurancecustomers may prefer to have: $500,000 (or other amounts) of coveragefor various life or health insurance policies; certain types ofcoverages and/or insurance; certain levels of deductibles; premiumsunder $500 per month; etc. Thus, groups of similarly minded customersmay be grouped together based upon similar coverages, deductibles,and/or limits that they may typically prefer for various types ofinsurance. Additionally or alternatively, groups of similarly mindedcustomers may be grouped together based upon similar customer healthcharacteristics.

In one embodiment, customer health characteristics may be analyzed 702after customers have given their affirmative consent or permission torelease medical information, and subsequently the customers' medicaldiagnostic examination results (or portions thereof) may be analyzed todetermine respective health characteristics. Characteristics that may beanalyzed by the one or more processors may include customer risk, riskscores, age, status (such as married or single), occupation,geographical location, life style, drinking or smoking habits, body massindex, blood pressure level, chronic conditions, medications, etc.

One or more processors may access a database, customer examinationresults, and/or customer health profiles that are stored in one or morememory units to analyze the customer health characteristics and/orcustomer insurance policy preferences. For example, a database storingcustomer health characteristics and/or customer insurance policypreferences may be accessible to the insurance procurement system 14,and/or to the insurance provider systems 16-1 to 16-N. In someembodiments, each insurance provider systems 16-1 to 16-N may onlyaccess its own respective customer database.

In one embodiment, analyzing insurance customers by healthcharacteristics 702 may include analyzing health profiles of insurancecustomers which have been determined based upon results of respectivemedical diagnostic examinations that have been performed on thecustomers. For example, a health profiler unit 20 may generate healthprofiles of customers based upon stored exam results in the database 30,and the generated health profiles may be analyzed (block 702).

The method 700 may include, via the one or more processors, computingdevices or servers, dividing and/or classifying insurance customers intogroups or segments 704, e.g., based upon the results of the analysis702. Based upon the analysis of customers mentioned above, such ascomputer analysis of customer health or life style characteristicsand/or customer health-related insurance policy preferences, thecustomers may be divided into groups or segments of customers havingsimilar characteristics or preferences. For example, multiple groups orsegments of a set of customers may be determined based upon contents ofhealth profiles of the set of customers, e.g., common range ofparticular health characteristics, omission of certain healthconditions, etc. Various groups and/or segments of the set of customersmay be determined additionally or alternatively based upon othercriteria. For instance, one group or segment of insurance customers maybe characterized as (1) low risk or having a risk score within a givenrange; (2) carrying out certain life styles (such as life stylesinvolving little or no smoking or drinking, little travel; littledangerous activities (lack of sky diving, downhill skiing, scuba diving,etc.); (3) living within a given state, city, or zip code; (4) havingone or more deductible preferences; (5) having one or more coveragepreferences; (6) having one or more common characteristics (age, chronicconditions, occupation, etc.); and/or (7) other common factors.

In one embodiment, insurance customer groups, groupings, or segments maybe additionally or alternatively defined by behavioral and attitudinalsegmentation and/or customer criteria, such as occupation, riskcharacteristics, insurance claims expectations, insurance companyratings, driving behavior (e.g., as determined by telematics data), etc.Other customer groups may be defined, including those discussedelsewhere herein.

The method 700 may include, via the one or more processors, computingdevices or servers, and via one or more electronic or communicationsnetworks, auctioning or offering for sale the opportunity to providehealth-related insurance (e.g., life, burial, accidental death, health,etc.) to one or more of the customer groups or segments 706. In oneembodiment, each group of insurance customers having common healthcharacteristics and/or insurance policy preferences may be presented topotential bidders (e.g., insurance provider systems 16-1 to 16-N) via anelectronic or online auction for the opportunity to provide insurancefor the group of customers. For instance, the one or more processors,computing devices or servers may cause one or more insurance customergroups to be presented and/or offered for sale on remote display screens(such as via the Internet or a secure communications network), e.g., inconjunction with respective indications of their common or similarhealth characteristics and/or insurance preferences.

The method 700 may include, via the one or more processors, computingdevices or servers, receiving one or more bids 708, e.g., from at leastsome of the insurance provider systems 16-1 to 16-N, and/or via one ormore electronic or communications networks. Bidders for the variousgroups of similarly situated and/or like-minded insurance customers(such as grouped by low or medium risk life styles, insureds with thesame preferences for deductibles or coverages, insureds having similardriving behaviors (as evidenced by telematics data), etc.) may submittheir bids via remote computers, e.g., computers of the systems 16-1 to16-N. The bids may be received by a processor or server associated withthe entity running the auction via wireless or wired communicationand/or data transmission, e.g., one or more processors of the insuranceprocurement system 14 or of the medical diagnostic provider system 34.

The method 700 may include, via the one or more processors, computingdevices or servers, determining a winning bid from the set of receivedbids 709. Determining the winning bid 709 may include, for example,comparing the one or more bids against a set of pre-determined,prioritized criteria, such as premium cost, insurance provider rating,compatibility of the bid with the range of preferences specified by thegroup's customers, etc. In some embodiments, determining the winning bid709 may include accepting the winning bid and notifying thecorresponding insurance provider system 16. If the winning bid includesa binding quote, insurance may thereby be automatically obtained orprocured for (e.g., on behalf of) the customers included in the group,e.g., in a manner similar to as previously described above.

The method 700 may include, via the one or more processors, computingdevices or servers, notifying insurance customers of new life orhealth-related insurance policies, premiums, discounts, etc. 710, e.g.by using one or more electronic and/or communications networks. After awinning bid has been determined or selected, new life or health-relatedinsurance policies, rates, premiums, discounts, etc. may be determinedor updated. New insurance policies and associated information may becommunicated to the insureds that may be impacted by the auction, suchas notified of reduced premiums and/or increased discounts (such asincreased discounts for low risk driving behavior). The determination orselection of a winning bid may be performed by the customer (e.g. viahis or her computing device 12), and/or by the medical diagnostic system34 or the insurance procurement system 14, e.g., when the customer hadgiven his or her previous consent for the system 34 or 14 to procureinsurance on the customer's behalf. In some embodiments, a winning bidmay result in a change to a customer's existing health-related policy.For example, a premium amount may be decreased, a coverage maximum maybe increased, etc. In these situations, the customer may be notified ofthe changes to his or her existing insurance coverage (block 710).

The method 700 may include, via the one or more processors, computingdevices or servers, automatically detecting health-related events orother events that may impact a risk associated with a customer orcustomers 712. Over time, risk associated with each customer may change.One customer may engage in low risk behavior, and/or not be involvedwith automobile accidents, and/or not report any insurance claims or anyhealth issues. On the hand, other customer may be involved in a highnumber of automobile accidents and/or otherwise engage in risky drivingbehavior, or engage in high-risk activities (skiing, scuba diving,surfing, etc.). As a result, risk associated with various customers (orrisk scores) may be lowered or increased over time based upon dataanalysis by one or more processors, such as by a processor associatedwith an insurance provider and/or medical diagnostic provider, and withthe permission of the insured. For instance, insureds engaging inlow-risk behavior may desire for their information to be analyzed by aninsurance provider to achieve a discount on various insurance products.The data may by gathered by one or more processors, such as gatheredfrom a customer profile and/or from third party sources, such as a DMV(Department of Motor Vehicles) or social media websites. Additionally oralternatively, the data may be telematics data that is gathered by amobile device (e.g., smart phone) and/or a conventional telematicsdevice that plugs into an electrical or computer system of a vehicle.

Additionally or alternatively, changes to customers' health profiles mayalso change over time, and may impact customers' risk scores. Changes tocustomers' health profiles may be determined or detected (block 712),for example, by receiving an indication of updates and/or changes to thecustomer's health from the medical diagnostic provider system 34, and/orby receiving input from the customer 12.

The method 700 may include, via the one or more processors, computingdevices or servers, updating the customer's or customers' health profileor risk score 714. Based upon the data gathered and/or collected by oneor more processors, each customer's health profile, risk profile, and/orrisk score may be updated to reflect low or high-risk behavior. Forinstance, a customer's profile may reflect more recent customerpreferences for various insurance policy coverages, deductibles, limits,etc. The customer profile may also be updated to reflect more recentcustomer preferences for various types of insurance or insuranceproducts that the customer may be interested in, such as life, health,burial, auto, homeowners, or other insurance. As another example, acustomer's risk score or profile for automobile insurance may be updatedbased upon a lack of accidents for a given period of time, and/orinvolvement in one or more vehicle accidents. The cause of the vehicleaccidents may also be factored into the risk score or profile.

The method 700 may include, via the one or more processors, updating thecustomer group or segment to which a customer belongs or is assigned,and/or moving or reassigning the customer to a new group 716. Forinstance, based upon a customer's updated health profile and/or riskscore, an individual customer may be moved, via one or more processors,to be associated with a new or different customer group or segment.Additionally or alternatively, based upon a customer's more recentpreferences for insurance policy coverages, deductibles, or limits,and/or types of insurance products, an individual customer may be moved,by the one or more processors, to be associated with a new or differentcustomer group or segment.

The method 700 may include, via the one or more processors, computingdevices or servers, after a number of customers have been moved to newor different risk-based groups, having or holding another auction of thenew or updated groups 706, and then the process 700 may continue (asshown in FIG. 7). For instance, after a number of customers have beenmoved to a new or different group of insurance customers based upontheir personal characteristics (education, marital status, age, drivingrecord or history, etc.) and/or insurance policy preferences (newinterest in life or health insurance, new interest in home ownersinsurance, changed policy deductibles or coverages, interest in usingtelematics devices and/or gathering telematics data, etc.), a newelectronic or online auction of the new, or revised/updated group ofinsurance policies associated with those insurance customers for whichpersonal characteristics and/or insurance policies have changed may beheld, such as under the direction of one or more processors.

It is noted that while the method 700 above is described with respect toa group of insurance customers, most of the techniques therein may beeasily applied to an individual insurance customer. For example, thehealth profile of an individual customer may be auctioned or offered forsale (block 706), resulting bids may be compared (block 708), a winningbid may be selected (block 709), and the individual customer may benotified of a change to an existing policy or a possible new insurancepolicy (block 710). Similarly, changes to the health condition, othercharacteristics, and/or other preferences of the individual customer maybe detected or determined (block 712), and the risk score and/or healthprofile of the individual customer may be updated based upon the changes(block 714). Based upon the updated risk score and/or health profile ofindividual customer, his or her existing insurance policy may be updatedor a new policy may be established (block 716), e.g. by utilizing anauctioning technique (blocks 706, 708, 709).

IX. Exemplary Method for Initiating Procurement of Insurance Based UponMedical Diagnostic Examinations

FIG. 8 illustrates an exemplary computer-implemented method 800 ofproviding insurance based upon medical diagnostic examinations, e.g.,via an electronic or communications network. That is, FIG. 8 illustratesan exemplary computer-implemented method for initiating offers forinsurance based upon medical diagnostic examinations. In one embodiment,at least a portion of the method 800 may be performed using theinsurance procurement system 14 of FIG. 1 and/or by the computer system300 of FIG. 2. For example, at least a portion of the method 800 may beperformed by one or more of the health profiler unit 20, the eligibilitydeterminer unit 21, the provider selector unit 22, the policyprocurement unit 24, and/or the notification unit 26. Indeed, one ormore portions of the method 800 may operate in conjunction with thesystems 14, 34, and/or 16-1 to 16N of FIG. 1, the system 300 of FIG. 2,and/or with any one or more portions of the other methods describedherein.

It is noted that although the method 800 is discussed below withsimultaneous reference to FIGS. 1-3, this is merely for ease ofdiscussion, and is not limiting in any way. Generally, the method 800may be applicable for any number of any types of insurance that requirea medical diagnostic examination to be performed on a potential insuredparty, e.g., life insurance, health insurance, disability insurance,long-term care insurance, etc., but may be equally applicable to othertypes of insurance, e.g., automobile insurance, personal liabilityinsurance, etc.

The method 800 may include, in one embodiment, storing respective setsof results (or portions thereof) of medical diagnostic examinations thathave been performed on one or more patients or subjects by one or moremedical diagnostic providers (block 802). For example, the examinationresults may be stored at the medical diagnostic provider system 34and/or at the insurance procurement system 14, e.g., in the examinationresults database 30. The method 800 may also include particularlyconfiguring one or more tangible, non-transitory memories of the systemstoring thereon particular computer-executable instructions forinitiating the procurement of insurance offers based upon medicaldiagnostic examinations and/or based upon their results (block 805);and/or executing, by one or more processors of the system, theparticular computer-executable instructions (block 808).

The execution of the particular computer-executable instructions 808 maycause the system, with a customer's permission, to obtain a set ofstored medical diagnostic examination results of a patient, customer, orconsumer (block 810), where the results were generated from a medicaldiagnostic examination that was performed on the patient; determine orgenerate a health profile of the patient on which the examination wasperformed (block 812); and/or determine, based upon the contents of thehealth profile of the patient, whether or not the patient is eligiblefor one or more offers for one or more types of insurance that requiremedical diagnostic examinations to be performed on applicants or onpotential insured parties (block 815). At the block 815, when or if thepatient or subject is determined as being ineligible for one or moreoffers of insurance, the method 800 returns to the block 810, e.g., sothat another patient's medical diagnostic examination results may beanalyzed. However, at the block 815, when or if the patient isdetermined as being eligible for one or more offers for insurance, themethod 800 may include providing or transmitting the patient's healthprofile to one or more insurance provider computing systems (block 818);receiving, in response to the transmission of health profile, one ormore insurance offers comprising one or more binding quotes for one ormore insurance policies for which the patient has been determined to bean eligible or approved insured party (block 820); and/or providing anindication of the one or more binding quotes to a user, therebyproviding the one or more offers for the one or more types of insurance(block 822).

The method may include additional, fewer, or alternate actions,including those discussed elsewhere herein. For example, in someembodiments, the blocks 805 and 808 are at least partially omitted, forexample, when one or more of the blocks 810-822 are performed byhardware, firmware, and/or any other suitable means for implementing thehealth profiler unit 20, the eligibility determiner unit 21, theprovider selector unit 22, the policy procurement unit 24, and/or thenotification unit 26.

Specifically, at the block 802, the method 800 may include storing oneor more sets of results of medical diagnostic examinations that havebeen performed on respective patients or respective subjects by one ormore medical diagnostic providers. As previously discussed, typically,the medical diagnostic examinations may have been performed on patientsby one or more medical diagnostic providers, physicians or other medicalprofessionals, medical diagnostic laboratories, and/or the like.Typically, each of the medical diagnostic examinations may have includedat least one invasive procedure, such as a blood draw and analysis, andin some scenarios, the medical examination may have performed as part ofthe patient's annual physical examination. The sets of medicalexamination results may be stored at the medical diagnostic providercomputing system 34, for example. Additionally or alternatively, atleast some of the sets of examination results (or copies thereof) may bestored (block 802) in the examination database 30 of FIG. 1, and thedata or information stored therein may be accessible or otherwise madeavailable to the insurance procurement system 14.

The method 800 may also include particularly configuring one or moretangible, non-transitory memories of the system by storing thereonparticular computer-executable instructions for initiating procurementof insurance offers based upon medical diagnostic examinations and/ortheir results (block 805). Referring to FIG. 2 as an illustrative butnon-limiting example, the particular computer-executable instructionsmay be included in the application programs 335 stored on the RAM 332and/or in the application programs 345 stored on the hard disk drive341, thereby particularly configuring the computing system 300. Theparticular computer-executable instructions may have been downloaded orotherwise transferred to the computing system 300, such as via a networkinterface 370, the persistent memory port 351, or the optical disk port355, for example.

Further, the method 800 may include executing, by one or more processorsof the system, the particular computer-executable instructions stored inthe therein (block 808). In one embodiment, the execution of theparticular computer-executable instructions 808 may cause the system toautomatically initiate the procurement of insurance offers based uponmedical diagnostic examination results. For example, the execution ofthe particular computer-executable instructions 808 may cause one ormore of blocks 810-822 to be executed. As previously discussed, though,in some embodiments of the method 800, at least part of the blocks 805and/or 808 are omitted, and in some embodiments, the method 800 includesadditional blocks that are not shown.

At any rate, the method 800 may include obtaining one or more storedsets of examination results (block 810) by using any suitable manner ortechnique. For example, the initial storing or writing of examinationresults into medical records data storage (block 802) may cause thesystem 14 to be notified of the newly added records, thus prompting thesystem 14 to access the newly added records. In another example, thesystem 14 may obtain a shadow copy of at least some of the records thatare stored in a master medical records database, e.g., by automaticreceipt or explicit request. In still another example, the system 14 mayperiodically and/or on-demand request or access the master medicalrecords database for newly stored results, etc.

At a block 812, the method 800 may include determining or generating,for a particular obtained set of medical diagnostic examination results,a corresponding health profile of the respective patient, consumer,customer, or subject on which the examination was performed. Aspreviously discussed, the contents of a health profile typicallyincludes a subset of data extracted or generated based upon the dataand/or information stored in the respective set of medical diagnosticexamination results. For example, data included in the respective set ofmedical diagnostic examination results may be aggregated, average,and/or otherwise combined to generate the patient's health profile. Thepatient's health profile may be generated by a medical diagnosticprovider system 34 or by an insurance procurement system 14 based uponthe patient's stored examination results, for example.

Additionally, the method 800 may include determining, based upon thehealth profile of the respective patient or subject, whether or not thepatient or subject is eligible for one or more offers for one or moretypes of insurance that require medical diagnostic examinations to beperformed on applicants or potential insured parties, such as healthinsurance, life insurance, disability insurance, etc. (block 815). Inone embodiment, the determination may be made additionally based uponinformation, data, boundary conditions, and/or other criteria providedby each of the insurance providers 16-1 to 16-N, indications of whichmay be stored in the provider database 32. Additionally oralternatively, the determination may be made based upon information,data, boundary conditions, and/or other criteria that are provided bythe medical diagnostic provider and/or by the insurance procurer. If orwhen the patient is determined to be ineligible for one or more offersof insurance, the method 800 may return to the block 810 to obtainanother set of examination results of another patient. In someembodiments, the block 815 may be omitted, e.g., when the patient isassumed to be automatically eligible.

At the block 815, if or when the patient is determined to be eligiblefor one or more offers of one or more types of insurance, the method 800may include providing or transmitting the health profile of the patientto one or more recipient insurance provider computing systems to whichthe system is communicatively coupled (block 818), e.g., via one or morenetwork interfaces that communicatively couple the system to therecipient insurance provider computing systems for bid or the generationof one or more insurance offers for which the patient may be an insuredparty.

In one embodiment, providing or transmitting the health profile of thepatient is based upon an assent or consent of the patient (or his or heragent), e.g., to release the examination results and/or other medicalinformation to one or more third parties. For example, the method 800may include obtaining the assent, consent, or permission to releasemedical information of the patient, and the block 818 is executed onlywhen the permission to release the patient's medical information hasbeen granted. The assent of the patient or the patient's agent may beobtained in conjunction with the patient's medical diagnosticexamination or the patient's assent may be obtained at any other timeprior to the execution of the block 818 (e.g., via a user interfaceand/or one or more network interfaces). In one embodiment, an indicationof the patient's assent, consent, or granted permission to releasemedical information may be stored in the one or more data storagedevices of the medical diagnostic provider computing system 34 and/or inconjunction with the patient's medical diagnostic examination results(e.g., in the exam results database 30).

In one embodiment (not shown), the method 800 may include obtaining anindication of one or more preferred insurance policy terms, such as adesired or preferred amount of a premium payment, term length, insuranceprovider rating, type of insurance, payout amount, annuity amount,settlement option, and/or other insurance policy term. One or more ofthe preferred insurance terms may be indicated by the patient, thepatient's agent, and/or by the insurance procurement system (e.g., thesystem 14 or the system 300), such as in conjunction with the patient'smedical examination, in conjunction with the patient's consent torelease medical information, or at any other time prior to the executionof the block 818. For example, the patient or the patient's agent mayqueried (asynchronously with the execution of his or medicalexamination) as to if he or she has any preferences for insurance terms(e.g., via a user interface and/or one or more network interfaces), andthe preferences of the patient may be stored with his or her medicalexamination results. When one or more preferred insurance policy termsare obtained or otherwise available, at least one of the availablepreferred insurance policy terms may be transmitted in conjunction withthe patient's health profile (block 818) for use by the insuranceprovider computing systems to utilize in generating their respectiveinsurance offers.

In some embodiments (not illustrated), prior to transmitting the healthprofile of the patient to one or more recipient insurance providercomputing systems (block 818), the method 800 may include determining orselecting the particular recipient insurance provider computing systems.Referring to FIG. 1 as an illustrative but non-limiting example, thesystem 14 may determine or select which of the insurance providercomputing systems 16-1 through 16-N is or are to receive the patient'shealth profile, e.g., for bidding purposes. The determination orselection of recipient insurance provider computing systems may be basedupon the aforementioned one or more preferred insurance policy terms,for example, one or more insurance preferences and/or requirementsindicated by the patient, his or her agent, and/or insurance procurer;one or more characteristics of the insurance providers 16-1 to 16-N(e.g., as indicated by the provider database 32, such as the types ofinsurance that are respectively provided by each of the providers 16-1through 16-N); an availability of each of the insurance providercomputing systems 16-1 through 16-N; and/or based upon other criteria.

Each recipient insurance provider computing system may determine, basedupon the contents of the received health profile (and optionally on anyreceived preferred insurance policy terms), whether or not the patientor subject is an eligible and/or approved insured party for one or moreoffers for insurance that are able to be provided by recipient insuranceprovider. Consequently, one or more recipient insurance providercomputing systems may determine, generate, and return, to the system,one or more insurance offers comprising one or more offers for insurancefor which the patient is an approved insured party. In one embodiment,the one or more offers for insurance are not merely estimates ornon-binding quotes for insurance; instead, the one or more offers forinsurance comprise binding quotes, where the acceptance of one of thebinding quotes results in a legal contract for insurance.

Moreover, the initial generation of one or more insurance offers for thepatient at respective insurance provider computing systems may have beeninitially triggered or initiated at the respective insurance providercomputing systems only based upon the reception of the patient's healthprofile (and optionally of indicated insurance preferences and/orrequirements) at the respective insurance provider computing systems sothat the one or more insurance offers are an initial set of insuranceoffers that are generated for the patient. For example, a specificresponding insurance provider computing system may not initiate or begingenerating an insurance offer for the patient until the patient's healthprofile is received at the specific responding insurance providercomputing system from the system (e.g., from the insurance procurementsystem 14 or from the computing system 300). That is, the respectiveinsurance provider computing system does not receive (from the system14, the system 300, any other system, or any user interface) any partialpersonal information corresponding to the and relating to the generationof the one or more insurance offers prior to receiving the patient'shealth profile from the system (e.g., from the system 14 or the system300). Indeed, in some cases, the patient's health profile is the sole oronly indication of a quality of health of the patient that is receivedby the respective insurance provider computing system, and the one ormore insurance offers may be generated from the sole indication of thepatient's quality of health.

Thus, as one or more offers for insurance may be provided to the systemby one or more recipient insurance provider computing systems, themethod 800 may further include receiving one or more offers forinsurance corresponding to one or more respective insurance policies forwhich the patient or subject is eligible as an insured party (block820). Additionally, the method 800 may still further include providingan indication of the one or more offers for insurance to a user (block822), e.g., via a user interface, via one or more networks, by email, byphysical letter, and/or electronically at a user interface of the usercomputing device 12, the medical diagnostic provider system 34, theinsurance procurement system 14, and/or any one of the insuranceprovider systems 16-1 to 16-N, etc., thereby initiating the one or moreoffers for insurance based upon the patient's medical diagnosticexamination results.

The method 800 may include determining that one of the one or moreoffers for insurance provided at the block 822 has been selected, e.g.,by the patient, the patient's agent, another user, by the procurementsystem (e.g., the system 14 or the system 300), and/or another computingsystem (not shown). For example, the method 800 may include receiving anindication of the selected offer for insurance from the customer 12. Inanother example, the method 800 may include the system 14 selecting aparticular offer for insurance based upon one or more selection criteriawhich may be indicated, for example, by the obtained one or morepreferred insurance policy terms. The selection criteria may include anindication of an order of priority and/or importance of variouscriteria, and the method 800 may include comparing the receivedplurality of insurance offers against the criteria and optionally, theirrelative priority (not shown). For example, the system may compare thereceived plurality of insurance offers based upon one or more insurancepreferences and/or requirements indicated by the patient or consumer,and optionally based upon a prioritization of the preferences and/orrequirements that have been previously indicated. If no insurancepreferences and/or requirements have been otherwise indicated, thesystem may compare the received plurality of insurance offers based uponone or more default criteria, e.g., the lowest monthly premium amount.

The method 800 may include accepting the selected binding quote onbehalf of the patient or the patient's agent (not shown). For example,permission to accept a binding quote on behalf of the patient based uponthe results of the patient's medical diagnostic examination results mayhave been granted in conjunction with his or her medical diagnosticexamination. In one embodiment, determining the selection of bindingquote includes accepting the selected binding quote on behalf of thepatient, thereby resulting in a legal contract for insurance.

The method 800 may further include providing an indication of theselected binding quote to the insurance provider computing system 16 xthat provided or generated the selected binding quote in response toreceiving the patient's health profile (not shown). The insuranceprovider computing system 16 x, upon being notified that its insuranceoffer has been selected, may proceed to underwrite, bind, and/or performother actions to move the insurance policy to being in an “in-force”state. Further, the insurance provider computing system 16 x may provideindications notifications that one or more of the actions has beencompleted, e.g., that the policy has been underwritten, that the policyhas been bound, that the policy is in force, etc. As such, the method800 may include receiving, e.g. at the system, one or more indicationsof these and/or other actions that have been completed by the insuranceprovider computing system 16 x to move the insurance policy towardsbeing in-force.

In some embodiments (not shown), the method 800 may include initiatingat least a partial refund of the cost of the medical diagnosticexamination. Additionally or alternatively, the method 800 may includeinitiating a credit corresponding to at least a portion of the cost ofthe medical diagnostic examination towards future premiums and/or feesof the insurance policy. For example, upon receiving notification thatthe insurance policy has been bound, the method 800 may initiate atleast one of the refund or the credit.

In some embodiments, at least some of the blocks 810-822 are included inan automated auction of the patient's health profile, such as describedin aforementioned U.S. Patent Application No. 62/104,596, or some othersuitable automated auction. Auctioning the patient's health profile mayfurther include selecting one of the received plurality of insuranceoffers. For example, the system may receive an indication ofpreferences, requirements, and/or priorities of one or more insurancecharacteristics, and the system may automatically select the one of thereturned insurance offers that best meets the indicated preferences,requirements and/or priorities (or alternatively, that best meets theone or more default criteria). The system may automatically provide theselected insurance offer to the patient, patient's agent, and/or anotheruser.

While the method 800 has been described above with respect to aparticular patient, this is only one of many embodiments. For example, aparticular patient's health profile may be grouped with the healthprofiles of other patients, and the group of health profiles may beauctioned to various insurance providers and at least some of theinsurance providers may return one or more bids for the group of healthprofiles, e.g., in a manner such as described in aforementioned U.S.Patent Application No. 62/104,596. Indeed, any one or more of thetechniques described herein for initiating the procurement of insurancebased upon medical diagnostic examinations may operate in conjunctionwith one or more aspects of U.S. Patent Application No. 62/104,596, ifdesired. In some embodiments, though, patient health profiles are notauctioned, and are merely sent out to one or more insurance providersystems for a single round of bidding.

Further, the method 800 may be utilized for one or more sets of medicaldiagnostic examination records, and/or with one or more differentinsurance providers. In an example scenario, the method 800 may obtain asingle set of examination results for a particular patient (block 810),and may transmit the health profile of said patient to multipledifferent insurance providers' systems (block 818) e.g., toautomatically initiate offers for insurance based upon the patient'smedical diagnostic examination results. In another example scenario, themethod 800 may obtain multiple sets of medical diagnostic examinationresults corresponding to multiple patients (block 810), and respectivehealth profiles for each of the sets of results may be transmitted to asingle insurance provider's system (818), e.g., to automaticallyinitiate offers for insurance based upon the patients' medicaldiagnostic examination results.

Still further, in the method 800, the offers that are received from theone or more insurance providers system's (block 820) may be bindingoffers or quotes for insurance, or may be non-binding offers or quotesfor insurance. Additionally, as previously discussed, in someembodiments, the method 800 may automatically select one of the receivedoffers, while in some embodiments of the method 800, the patient or thepatient's agent may select one of the received offers. Also aspreviously discussed, in some embodiments, the method 800 mayautomatically cause the selected offer to be bound, therebyautomatically providing insurance for the patient based upon his or hermedical diagnostic examination results.

X. Additional Considerations

The following additional considerations apply to the foregoingdiscussion. Throughout this specification, plural instances mayimplement operations or structures described as a single instance.Although individual operations of one or more methods are illustratedand described as separate operations, one or more of the individualoperations may be performed concurrently, and nothing requires that theoperations be performed in the order illustrated. These and othervariations, modifications, additions, and improvements fall within thescope of the subject matter herein.

Unless specifically stated otherwise, discussions herein using wordssuch as “processing,” “computing,” “calculating,” “determining,”“presenting,” “displaying,” or the like may refer to actions orprocesses of a machine (e.g., a computer) that manipulates or transformsdata represented as physical (e.g., electronic, magnetic, or optical)quantities within one or more memories (e.g., volatile memory,non-volatile memory, or a combination thereof), registers, or othermachine components that receive, store, transmit, or displayinformation.

As used herein any reference to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment”means that a particular element, feature, structure, or characteristicdescribed in connection with the embodiment is included in at least oneembodiment. The appearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” in variousplaces in the specification are not necessarily all referring to thesame embodiment.

As used herein, the terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “includes,”“including,” “has,” “having” or any other variation thereof, areintended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion. For example, a process,method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements is notnecessarily limited to only those elements but may include otherelements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method,article, or apparatus. Further, unless expressly stated to the contrary,“or” refers to an inclusive or and not to an exclusive or. For example,a condition A or B is satisfied by any one of the following: A is true(or present) and B is false (or not present), A is false (or notpresent) and B is true (or present), and both A and B are true (orpresent).

In addition, use of “a” or “an” is employed to describe elements andcomponents of the embodiments herein. This is done merely forconvenience and to give a general sense of the invention. Thisdescription should be read to include one or at least one and thesingular also includes the plural unless it is obvious that it is meantotherwise.

Upon reading this disclosure, those of skill in the art will appreciatestill additional alternative structural and functional designs for asystem and a process of automatically obtaining and/or maintaininginsurance coverage through the principles disclosed herein. Thus, whileparticular embodiments and applications have been illustrated anddescribed, it is to be understood that the disclosed embodiments are notlimited to the precise construction and components disclosed herein.Various modifications, changes and variations, which will be apparent tothose skilled in the art, may be made in the arrangement, operation anddetails of the method and apparatus disclosed herein without departingfrom the spirit and scope defined in the appended claims.

The patent claims at the end of this patent application are not intendedto be construed under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f) unless traditionalmeans-plus-function language is expressly recited, such as “means for”or “step for” language being explicitly recited in the claim(s).

1-20. (canceled)
 21. A computer-implemented method for auctioning anopportunity to provide insurance to a group of similarly-situatedcustomers, the method comprising: analyzing, via one or more processorsof a system, customers' medical diagnostic examination results todetermine respective health characteristics; analyzing, via the one ormore processors of the system, insurance policy preferences for thecustomers; classifying, via the one or more processors of the system,the customers into segments based upon (i) the respective healthcharacteristics, and (ii) the insurance policy preferences; auctioningor offering for sale, via the one or more processors of the system, anopportunity to provide insurance to a particular segment of customers bytransmitting an indication of the particular segment of customersincluding a description of the common health characteristics andinsurance policy preferences for the particular segment for display topotential insurance provider bidders via an electronic or onlineauction; receiving, via the one or more processors of the system, aplurality of bids to provide insurance to the particular segment ofcustomers having common health characteristics and insurance policypreferences, the plurality of bids determined by a plurality ofinsurance provider computing systems; determining, via the one or moreprocessors of the system, a winning bid from the plurality of bids bycomparing each of the plurality of bids against a set of predetermined,prioritized criteria; and transmitting to a mobile device operated by acustomer in the particular segment of customers, via the one or moreprocessors of the system, an indication of a selected insurance offerbased on the winning bid, thereby reducing network traffic byautomatically selecting the insurance offer without transmitting aplurality of non-binding quotes for the customers to cyclically hone inon acceptable insurance terms.
 22. The computer-implemented method ofclaim 21, wherein the predetermined, prioritized criteria includepremium cost or insurance provider rating.
 23. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 21, wherein the insurance policy preferences includeinsurance coverage, deductibles, or limits.
 24. The computer-implementedmethod of claim 21, wherein the customers' medical diagnostic resultsare analyzed by the one or more processors of the system to determinerespective health characteristics.
 25. The computer-implemented methodof claim 24, wherein the health characteristics include risk scores. 26.The computer-implemented method of claim 24, wherein the healthcharacteristics include body mass index, blood pressure level, ormedications.
 27. The computer-implemented method of claim 21, whereinthe particular customer segment is based upon occupation, or insuranceclaim expectations.
 28. The computer-implemented method of claim 21, themethod further comprising: notifying, via the one or more processors ofthe system, the customers of new life or health-related insurancepolicies, premiums, or discounts.
 29. The computer-implemented method ofclaim 21, the method further comprising: automatically detecting, viathe one or more processors of the system, health-related events thatimpact risk associated with a customer or customers.
 30. Thecomputer-implemented method of claim 29, the method further comprising:updating, via the one or more processors of the systems, a healthprofile for customer based upon changes to the customer's health. 31.The computer-implemented method of claim 30, the method furthercomprising: reassigning, via the one or more processors of the system, acustomer to a new segment based upon the customer's updated healthprofile.
 32. The computer-implemented method of claim 21, the methodfurther comprising: reassigning, via the one or more processors of thesystem, a customer to a new segment based upon their interest inadditional insurance.
 33. The computer-implemented method of claim 21,the method further comprising: reassigning, via the one or moreprocessors of the system, a customer to a new segment based upon theirinterest in using telematics device or gathering telematics data.
 34. Acomputer system for auctioning an opportunity to provide insurance to agroup of similarly-situated customers, the system comprising: one ormore network interfaces communicatively coupling the system torespective computing systems of the plurality of insurance providers viaone or more electronic or communications networks: and one or moretangible, non-transitory memories storing particular computer-executableinstructions thereon, thereby particularly configuring the system andthat, when executed by one or more processors of the system, cause thesystem to: analyze customers' medical diagnostic examination results todetermine respective health characteristics; analyze insurance policypreferences for the customers; classify the customers into segmentsbased upon (i) the respective health characteristics, and (ii) theinsurance policy preferences; auction or offer for sale an opportunityto provide insurance to a particular segment of customers bytransmitting an indication of the particular segment of customersincluding a description of the common health characteristics andinsurance policy preferences for the particular segment for display topotential insurance provider bidders via an electronic or onlineauction; receive, via the one or more network interfaces, a plurality ofbids to provide insurance to the particular segment of customers havingcommon health characteristics and insurance policy preferences, theplurality of bids determined by a plurality of insurance providercomputing systems; determine a winning bid from the plurality of bids bycomparing each of the plurality of bids against a set of predetermined,prioritized criteria; and transmit to a mobile device operated by acustomer in the particular segment of customers, via the one or morenetwork interfaces, an indication of a selected insurance offer based onthe winning bid, thereby reducing network traffic by automaticallyselecting the insurance offer without transmitting a plurality ofnon-binding quotes for the customers to cyclically hone in on acceptableinsurance terms.
 35. The computer system of claim 34, wherein thepredetermined, prioritized criteria include premium cost or insuranceprovider rating.
 36. The computer system of claim 34, wherein theinsurance policy preferences include insurance coverage, deductibles, orlimits.
 37. The computer system of claim 34, wherein the customers'medical diagnostic results are analyzed by the one or more processors ofthe system to determine respective health characteristics.
 38. Thecomputer system of claim 34, the system further configured to: notifycustomers of new life or health-related insurance policies, premiums, ordiscounts.
 39. The computer system of claim 34, the system furtherconfigured to: automatically detect health-related events that impactrisk associated with a customer or customers.
 40. The computer system ofclaim 39, the system further configured to: update a health profile forcustomer based upon changes to the customer's health.